CollarRedux
by oflymonddreams
Summary: In an AU Princeton Plains, the head of Diagnostics wears a collar... and kindly Doctor Wilson is very, very interested in Greg, the hospital's expensive asset. Now complete for 1st season.  Story continues in CollarRedux2.
1. 1 Pilot

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... Note: Now rated M because it begins to get graphic in chapter 4, 1.3, "Maternity". Apparently you can't rate individual chapters... but the story as a whole is still T. More or less._

**1.0 Pilot**

Wilson waited till he heard the door open behind him, and the dot and shuffle of the cane. "29 year old female, first seizure one month ago, lost the ability to speak. Babbled like a baby. Present deterioration of mental status," Wilson said.

Cuddy looked up past Wilson and said, not to him, "I was expecting you here twenty minutes ago."

"Really?"

Wilson turned his head a little and studied the man by the door.

"That's odd, because I had no intention of being in your office 20 minutes ago." The man lifted his chin a little: his voice sounded almost indifferent, but all his body language held a fragile defiance, expecting to be broken.

"You think we have nothing to talk about?"

"No, just that I can't think of anything I could say that you'd be interested in."

"I have a case for him," Wilson said. He swung his attention back to Cuddy.

"He's behind on his clinic hours."

"He has three over-qualified doctors working for him, as of two days ago. _Three._ Do you know how many oncology fellows I have? Two."

"I am not behind on my clinic hours," the man interrupted.

"That's not what Nurse Previn tells me. You're doing double time till you catch up."

"See, I was right, I didn't have anything to say you would be interested in."

"Come over here," Cuddy said.

Wilson turned his head again to watch the man walk slowly across the room, the cane he was allowed gripped in one hand. He came up to the desk and turned his head to look at Wilson directly: a slow cold stare. He said nothing: there was nothing done that could be taken notice of. He stood three inches taller than Wilson, and a hard stare from him was intimidating at close range, however absurd Wilson felt that to be.

"The 29 year old female," Wilson said crisply.

"The one who can't talk?" Cuddy asked.

The man grimaced fleetingly, as if he might have made some comment but thought better of it.

"She's my cousin."

Cuddy looked faintly sympathetic. "And she wants a diagnosis?"

"Brain tumor," the man said. "She's going to die. Boring," he added flatly.

Wilson lifted his eyebrows and eyed the man. "No wonder you re such a renowned diagnostician. You don't need to actually know anything to figure out what's wrong."

The man looked back at him. "You're the oncologist; I'm just a lowly infectious disease guy."

Wilson laughed: he was genuinely amused. "Yes, just a simple country doctor. Brain tumors at her age are highly unlikely."

"She's 29. Whatever she's got is highly unlikely."

"Protein markers for the three most prevalent brain cancers came up negative." He glanced at Cuddy, who was eyeing Wilson with a certain loss of sympathy, but he handed the man the file when she said nothing. "No family history," he added.

"I thought your uncle died of cancer," Cuddy said.

"Other side," Wilson told her. He was still watching the man. "No environmental factors," he added helpfully.

"That you know of," the man said.

"And she s not responding to radiation treatment," Wilson capped it.

"None of which is even close to dispositive," the man said. He was looking through the file with some interest, though. "All it does is raise one question." He looked at Cuddy. "Doctor Wilson's cousin goes to an HMO?"

Cuddy shook her head at Wilson, looking mildly disapproving, if not exactly annoyed.

Wilson leaned on Cuddy's desk. "Come on! Why leave all the fun for the coroner? What's the point of putting together a team for diagnostics if you're not going to use them? You've got three overqualified doctors working for you, getting bored, while your prize asset is doing time in the clinic!"

The man shrugged. He looked at Cuddy. "Are you going to grab my cane now, stop me from leaving?"

"That would be juvenile," Cuddy said. She sounded quite even-tempered. "I can still have you whipped if you re not performing effectively."

"I'm here all the time."

"Your billings for this quarter aren't satisfactory."

"I'm sorry."

"You ignore requests for consults."

"I call back. Mostly. Who complained?"

"You're weeks behind on your obligation to the clinic."

"I am not," the man said.

"You're allowed a certain amount of leeway, but you went over it." Cuddy was looking at Wilson, not at the man. "No MRIs, no imaging studies, no labs, and he also can t make long distance phone calls or photocopies."

"How many hours behind is he?" Wilson said, with resignation.

"I'm not!" The man had actually raised his voice: Wilson looked at him with some surprise, then at Cuddy. Cuddy shrugged a little, but she was still looking at Wilson.

"According to Nurse Previn, about four months."

"I show up! I do my job!" The man really was actually shouting. "If you're going to whip me at least have the guts to face me and tell me!"

"You're still yelling," Cuddy said. She was looking at the man now. Her voice held nothing but amused sarcasm. "Is your yelling designed to scare me? Because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be scared of. More yelling? That's not scary. That you're going to hurt me?" Wilson was particularly impressed with the little contemptuous lilt on _hurt me_. "That's scary, but I'm pretty sure I can outrun you." She looked away, back at Wilson. "Do you have an offer to make, Doctor Wilson?"

"Sure," Wilson said. He was annoyed. "I'll walk Greg down to the Diagnostics department, and then I'll go do four hours extra clinic duty to help him start making up the time he's missed."

"Good for you," Cuddy said. She looked back down at her desk, and Wilson realised he'd been dismissed. He glanced at the man: "Come on," he said.

"You better love this cousin a whole lot," the man muttered, clutching the file to his side with one arm and following, dot and shuffle, with his cane.

Wilson ignored that. The man was notorious for spending time at the whipping post being disciplined for offenses that ranged from rudeness to insubordinate behaviour and back again. Wilson had been moved into the office next to the Diagnostics department only three weeks ago, but Wilson had already decided that the slave in charge of Diagnostics was too interesting to be whipped.

------------

The big glass box of the Diagnostics office was a place Foreman hadn't yet spent much time: the first two days had been a rushed induction which included being walked from the department office to every other location in the building. Doctor House had a cubby-hole in back of the Diagnostics office, and seldom came out: this was the first time they'd run a DDX.

"And the big green thing in the middle of the bigger blue thing on a map is an island. I was hoping for something a bit more creative."

Foreman leaned back and eyed the man. He didn't like the situation, and he was surprised by the man's tone of voice. "Shouldn't we be speaking to the patient before we start diagnosing?"

"Is she a doctor?"

"No, but..."

"Everybody lies."

"Greg doesn t like dealing with patients," Doctor Cameron explained helpfully. "He's allowed to wear a polo neck, but he still doesn't like it."

"Isn't treating patients why we became doctors?"

"No," the man said. "Treating illnesses is why we became doctors, treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable." It was impossible to tell if he'd meant that has a joke.

"So you're trying to eliminate the humanity from the practice of medicine."

The man lifted his chin and looked Foreman down. He was, surprisingly, taller than Foreman: over the past three days whenever Foreman had met him, he'd been carrying himself hunched, giving the appearance of a much shorter man. Holding the case file seemed to have given him a fragile kind of confidence. "If you don t talk to them they can t lie to us, and we can t lie to them. Humanity is overrated. I don t think it's a tumor."

"First year of medical school," Foreman said, "If you hear hoof beats, you think 'horses' not 'zebras'."

The man's voice was actually sarcastic. "Are you in first year of medical school? No. First of all, there s nothing on the CAT scan. Second of all, if this is a horse then the kindly family doctor in Trenton makes the obvious diagnosis and it never gets near this office. Differential diagnosis, people: if it's not a tumor what are the suspects? Why couldn t she talk?"

"Aneurysm, stroke, or some other ischemic syndrome," the senior fellow said. He hadn't spoken before, and his only reaction to the man's newfound confidence and sarcasm was a small smile.

"Get her a contrast MRI." The man paused. "Check to make sure Doctor Wilson did his clinic hours, first."

"Creutzfeld-Jakob disease," Cameron said.

"Mad cow?" Chase said.

"Mad zebra," the man said. He sounded amused.

"Wernickie's encephalopathy?" Foreman offered.

"No," the man contradicted him calmly, "blood thiamine level was normal."

"Lab in Trenton could have screwed up the blood test. I assume it's a corollary if people lie, that people screw up."

"Re-draw the blood tests." The man glanced at the clock. "And get her scheduled for that contrast MRI as soon as Doctor Wilson's time is up. Let's find out what kind of zebra we're dealing with here. Doctor Cameron!"

She looked up at him, calmly, a little surprised.

"For the benefit of our new kid, what are the rules here?"

To Foreman's surprise, Cameron bit her lip and blushed. "I'm sorry. Doctor House."

Chase got up. "We'll explain on the way over to the patient, Doctor House."

Chase and Cameron flanked him out of the doorway: Foreman glanced back. The man wasn't wearing a polo-neck but a casual cotton shirt over a plain white t-shirt: the collar round his neck was immediately visible.

------------

"He's owned by the hospital," Chase said.

"He's a slave." Foreman was still spluttering over it. "I saw him in the halls outside, I thought he was a janitor!"

"This hospital wrote a contract for him that says inside the Diagnostics Department, which is defined in the contract as the office, his room behind the office, and the balcony outside, he gets to behave just like any other doctor, and he is your boss," Chase said. "Cameron's slip up was calling him Greg in that room. You can call him Greg outside the room, though personally I prefer to run away, but inside Diagnostics he's Doctor House. He's Doctor House if you have to speak to him in front of the patients in the clinic too - he's supposed to do clinic duty four hours a day, unless he can claim press of other work, and he usually tries."

Cameron was still looking embarrassed.

Foreman glanced at her, and asked Chase "What happens then?"

"He gets whipped for it," Chase said cheerfully. "You definitely want to avoid that. He has the right to fire you."

They were wheeling the patient down the hall to the MRI, when the patient, looking dazed, asked "You aren t my doctor, are you, Dr. House?

"Thankfully no," Chase said. "I'm Doctor Chase."

"Doctor House is the head of diagnostic medicine," Cameron told the patient. "He s very busy, but he has taken a keen interest in your case."

_TBC..._


	2. 12 Paternity

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.1 Paternity**

The clinic waiting room was full. All three exam room doors were closed. Doctor Simpson was in one, talking to a young woman and a small boy: the second one had Greg from Diagnostics in it, sitting on the exam table, holding a PDA. He looked up as Wilson came in, and slid off the table. His shoulders rounded and he ducked his head.

Wilson closed the door. He smiled. "Does Cuddy know you're in here alone?"

The man glanced at the clock on the wall. "I'm off at four."

"You ve got a full waiting room, how long do you think you can ignore them?"

The man's eyes widened and his mouth twitched. It looked almost as if he'd have liked to talk back at Wilson. "I m off at four," he said again.

"You re doing this to avoid five minutes of work?"

"I go out there, I get assigned a kid with a runny nose. That's 30 seconds looking at the nose; 25 minutes talking to a worried mom who won't leave until she sure it's not meningitis or a tumor."

Wilson outright laughed. "Yes, concerned parents can be so annoying. On the other hand, that would be thirty minutes more off your backlog of clinic hours."

"Nurse Previn doesn't count time done outside my shift hours," the man said. "I'm logged from noon to four, and I'm back at eight to midnight. I stay half an hour after four, I don't get half an hour off tonight."

Wilson shrugged. That was obviously beneficial to the hospital administration, but he could see why the man was dodging patients at the end of his shift. It was none of his business either way. "If Cuddy asks, tell her you've got an urgent case, you had to leave early."

"That would be lying," the man pronounced, as if slaves never lied.

"And that would be wrong." Wilson grinned. "But luckily, the definition of urgent is fungible."

"Not the definition of case, though."

Wilson stopped and looked back at the man: he was startled that Greg would admit it. "You have no cases. You have _no_ cases. You've got hand picked doctors, specialists, working for you, and they're sitting on their hands?"

"Cameron is answering my mail." The man said it soberly.

"Time well spent, I'm sure. Foreman and Chase?"

The man shrugged. "Research?" He glanced up at the clock. "Doctor Wilson, if you're trying to have the Diagnostics budget cut to transfer a fellowship from that department to yours, I'm not the person you need to talk to."

Wilson leaned back against the door and smiled at the man: he liked the way Greg's eyes widened and looked wary. "I have the office next to yours," he said. "I have the balcony next to yours. You don't think we should try to... get to know each other?"

"Sure," the man said. "Drop by Cuddy's office sometime. She's got my sales record, my disciplinary record, and my work record. She will let you know that I'm a valuable working asset. Whatever you have in mind, talk it out with her. In detail. I'm sure she'll enjoy that." He was still standing beside the table: he hadn't moved towards the door. "In the mean time, it's 4:03, my shift is over, and I'd like to check out."

Wilson moved away from the door. "Am I stopping you?"

He didn't move very far: the man had to walk close by him to reach the door. He glanced sideways at Wilson, very briefly, as he passed him, but went out with his head down. That sideways, wary look made Wilson smile.

--------

All three of the Diagnostic fellows left the office at the same time: Greg was standing by the white board, staring at the word MIDNIT, all the letters crossed off. He turned round as Wilson came in and looked at him. "What do you want?"

Interesting: in the Diagnostics office, he was standing upright, meeting Wilson's eyes, and able to ask a direct question.

"I saw all your over-qualified doctors had left you alone. Want company?"

He glanced back at the white board. "I sent them off to get the patient an EEG, left and right EOG esophageal. He doesn't have MS. He's hallucinating. I need to think."

"Coffee?"

Greg glanced over at the coffeemaker: it was empty. "Help yourself."

"It's a beautiful day. I haven't got any appointments for an hour. Come down to the cafeteria and I'll buy you a latte."

The man went very still. He was looking at Wilson very intently. "Did you ask Cuddy to see my records?"

"No. But I did look up your contract. You don't have to stay in here, and any doctor can escort you to any part of the hospital premises. I promise: I won't try to abduct you." Wilson smiled, putting all his charm into it. "You can tell me all about your case - sounds interesting."

Greg looked out of the window: the sun was shining from a clear blue sky, with only a few wispy white clouds. Wilson had no idea how long it had been since Greg had been further out than his balcony, but he suspected quite a while. After a minute, Greg turned back and picked up the PDA. "Okay," he said, and went past Wilson, still with an odd, wary, sideways look. That still made Wilson smile.

There were tables outside: Greg picked the one furthest away from the hospital walls. He accepted the paper cup from Wilson, and the peanut butter cookie, with a look of curiosity, more than anything else: he launched directly into a detailed rundown of his patient's symptoms that was more like a medical lecture than conversation.

"You should teach," Wilson said idly. "I bet you're good at it."

"Cuddy has me fill in when the other lecturers are on sick leave," Greg said shortly. He glanced back at the hospital. "We're missing something. This is screwed up."

"That's why you came up with the brain talking to the virus thing?"

"I panicked, okay? Sounded cool though. They bought it." Greg sounded more relaxed than he ever had before. Then, abruptly, his face seemed to freeze. "Oh shit."

"What?"

Greg swallowed. His hand came up, briefly, to the metal collar visible around his throat: he touched his shirt and his hand fell. "Another reason I don t like meeting patients. If they don t know that you look like they can't yell at you." He swallowed again. "Here we go," he said, almost inaudibly, and stood up.

"How can you just sit there?" There was a note Wilson didn't like in the woman's voice. He turned his chair slightly: both the man and the woman were glaring at Greg, but there was no indication of violence in their stance.

"I'm very sorry." Greg was standing stooped and head bent: he looked humble and submissive.

"Our son is dying," the man said heatedly, and he turned his glare on Wilson, "And you could care less? We re going through hell; you're taking him out for coffee while he does nothing?"

"I'm sorry," Greg said again. "You need to vent. I understand."

"Don't you dare talk to us like that. You haven t checked in on him once."

Greg lifted his head a little, and looked at them directly. "Blood pressure's 110/70, the shunt is patent well placed in the right lateral ventricle, the EKG shows a normal QRS with deep wave inversions throughout both limb and pericardial leads. LFTs are elevated but only twice the normal range. Oh yeah, and he's hearing voices." He paused. "Go hold his hand. Go on; I'll bus your tray."

The couple looked at him, and glanced again at Wilson. Without another word, they walked off: Wilson saw them reach for each other's hands.

Greg picked up their coffee cups and sat down. "Got any sample bags on you?"

"What? Why?"

"I don't think we got an accurate family history," Greg said. "In fact I'm sure we didn't. The dad's not the biological father."

"I don't believe you. You're going to run DNA tests?"

Greg looked back at him, wide-eyed. "Their son is deathly ill, I know it's terrible, but the fact is if I don t keep busy with trivial things like this I'm afraid I might start to cry."

Wilson laughed, delighted. "You're an ass."

Greg looked at him, corners of his mouth tucked in: it genuinely looked as if he might smile. "Yeah. But I get the job done." He glanced across at the hospital entrance, and uncertainly at Wilson. "May I go?"

"Why don't you wait ten minutes?" Wilson glanced up at the sky. "Then I'll walk you to the lab." That would give him time, even at Greg's pace, to deliver Greg to the lab - and get back to his own appointment. "You might as well have ten more minutes out in the sunshine."

Greg nodded. He put his hands together in his lap, and bowed his head. He said nothing. After a minute's silence Wilson said, irritated, "Are you sulking?"

"What do you want me to say?" Greg looked up, a brief flash of blue, and down again.

"Do you actually want to go in now?"

Greg's shoulders moved. "Whatever you say, Doctor Wilson," he muttered.

"Okay." Wilson stood up. He handed Greg one of his pens. "Better write 'Mom' and 'Dad' on their cups before you mix them up. Let's go."

Greg looked up: his face held an odd expression. He was surprised, Wilson realised: that his sulky behavior had got him his way. If it didn't usually work, why did he do it? After a moment, Greg smiled: not the smug smile of a spoiled slave who got what he wanted, and not the tightly controlled grin of a moment ago, but an astonished, genuine smile of pleasure.

Wilson grinned, when Greg's eyes were on the cups he was scribbling on: he _liked_ this.

_TBC...._


	3. 13 Occams Razor

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.2 Occam's Razor**

Two minutes after four, Greg walked out of the clinic: Wilson intercepted him. He had taken the patient's file when he spoke to the girlfriend. "Hey." He handed Greg the file.

Greg kept on walking. He reached the door to the stairwell, and paused, flipping open the file. Realizing that he had waited until he was out of sight of the security guards in the lobby, Wilson moved to stand between him and the line of view from lobby. Greg looked up.

"Why do you want me to treat this guy?"

"Blood pressure s not responding to IV fluids," Wilson offered the first tempting symptom.

Greg shook his head. "No," he said, faintly but definitely, "no, I didn t ask how you plan to con me into treating him, I asked you why _you_ want me to treat _him_."

_To see if you will._ They both knew that Wilson could simply take the file to Cuddy and request the time of the Diagnostics department. Wilson smiled. "He s sick, I care, I m pathetic."

Greg was no longer smiling. He was regarding Wilson with that intent blue gaze. "There are about a billion sick people on the planet, why this one?"

"Because ... this one s is in our emergency room?"

To Wilson's pleasure and somewhat to his surprise, he got that tucked-in grin from Greg. "Ah, so it s a proximity issue. If somebody was sick in the third floor stairwell that s who we would be talking about."

"Yes," Wilson agreed. He gestured at the door. "I checked the stairwell, it's clear."

"Okay then," Greg said abruptly, turning to go through the door to the stair, "emergency room guy it is."

Wilson followed. "Wait, how was that so easy?"

Greg looked up at the stairs and began, effortfully, to climb them. He glanced back at Wilson. "You know why."

"Blood pressure's not responding to IV fluids?"

"Yeah, that's just weird."

"Hey, if you're with me, don't you get to use the elevator?"

"Better not get used to it," Greg said.

"I'd like you to," Wilson said, following Greg up the stairs.

Greg gave him a deeply suspicious look, and ignored Wilson the rest of the way up: that might have been, simply, because for each stair he had to plant his cane and physically heave his right leg into place using muscles that weren't intended to do that work: it was fascinating to see, but slow going to watch. Still, Wilson enjoyed the view.

----------

They usually got a new Diagnostics case via Doctor Cuddy: this one walked in the door as three copies of a paper file dropped in front of them by "Doctor House": Foreman was getting used to this playacting. Greg met outside the Diagnostics box was almost a different person to Doctor House inside it. To an extent that Foreman had begun to wonder if there were personality problems, though no one had mentioned them. After four hours in the clinic "Doctor House" normally spent an hour or more in the tiny room in the back, or out on the balcony, just lazing around: today he dropped into a chair by the white board, looking tired but alert, and started to outline the patient's symptoms: evidently he'd gathered them from reading the file and photocopying it on the way to Diagnostics after the clinic.

"CBC was unremarkable, abdominal CT scan didn t show anything. So, people, differential diagnosis. What's wrong with her?"

Doctor Cameron looked up, correcting. "Him."

Greg shrugged. "Him, her, does it matter? Does anyone think it is a testicular problem? No, so Chase...?"

"Absidia infection?"

"No," Foreman corrected. With mould spores there wouldn t be a rash or cough. He bet rich-bitch Chase had never seen kids growing up in a mould-infected house. "What about arthritis? Accompanying vasculitis causes nerve damage "

"No," Cameron said, itching from the sarcasm of 'testicular problem': "it wouldn t cause the blood pressure problems. Allergy?"

"The kid's got abdominal pain," Chase said, this time actually looking at the notes. "Maybe carcinoid?"

Cancer was too easy. Foreman snorted "Nah, but then you wouldn't get the - "

A book slammed down on the table in front of Foreman: he jolted back, looking up, startled. "Doctor House" could move as quietly and as fast as Greg scuttling away down the corridors from the Diagnostic fellows: he was standing over Foreman, looking down at him as if Foreman were a first year medical student who'd said something stupid. "If you're going to list all the things it's not, it might be quicker to do it alphabetically." He leaned over Foreman to open the book at **A** - it was a medical dictionary. He smelled of fresh sweat. "Let's see. Absidia? Excellent. Doesn't account for any of the symptoms."

Doctor Cameron said gently, intolerably as if she were sorry for Foreman, "No condition accounts for all these symptoms."

"Well, good! Because I thought maybe he was sick, but apparently he's not. Who wants to do up the discharge papers?" Doctor House limped back to the whiteboard. He stood by it, leaning on his cane. "Okay, unless we control the blood pressure, he's going to start circling the drain before we can figure out what's wrong with him. Treat him for sepsis, broad-spectrum antibiotics, and I want a cort-stim test and an echocardiogram. Go."

-------------

The late shift in the clinic was one no doctor liked to volunteer for: Wilson was finishing up his paperwork for the four to eight shift. He was doing it as leisurely as he could, intending to watch for Greg coming in, but he was looking at a form when he heard Doctor Cuddy say crisply, "You're half an hour late."

"Busy case load," Greg said. He stood bent over his cane, head down.

"One case is not a 'load'."

"So," Greg said, sounding as if he were genuinely trying to placate her, "how are we doing on cotton swabs today?" Wilson looked up, startled: the placating tone in Greg's voice sounded real, but the offer was absurd. "If there's an acute shortage I could run over to - "

Cuddy took two crisp steps closer to Greg, and looked pointedly at his right leg. "No, you couldn't."

Greg's face froze up. He nodded, once. Cuddy pointed. "Exam room two. Brenda, log Doctor House on shift."

Wilson shuffled his paperwork together and followed Doctor Cuddy out.

"You might find that Greg can arrive on time if you let him use the elevators," Wilson said, just for openers.

Doctor Cuddy laughed once, and shot Wilson an interested look. "You want him? How much?"

"Look, he's genuinely lame, he has problems using the stairs - "

"Yes," Cuddy said. "And when he wants to get places around the hospital in a hurry, he uses the elevators and he takes the risk that he'll be reported to me and I'll have him whipped for it. Everywhere in the hospital he needs to go is on the same floor as Diagnostics. Are you expressing an interest in him?"

She turned round and looked at him: they were standing in the middle of the lobby. Wilson did not feel comfortable. "Do I have to take an interest in him to think he should be able to use the elevators to get to and from the clinic when he's working there?"

Cuddy shook her head, eyeing him. "He is one of the hospital's most valuable assets. I didn't buy him or keep him - given the disciplinary problems he causes every damn week - to be used sexually by hospital staff. If you want to discuss this in more detail, Doctor Wilson, make an appointment to see me in my office, but in the mean time - hands off." She smiled at him again, brightly, and walked away.

-------------

Wilson went to see the kid being discharged. It gave him a curious feeling in the gut: part ordinary satisfaction at seeing a patient walk out better than he arrived, but partly the glow of power satisfied. Cuddy would probably not have passed the case on to Diagnostics - certainly not so fast. Hands-off might have to be the rule for now, but he could manipulate Greg in other ways.

Besides, he had time. It wasn't as if Greg could get away.

Glancing over to the pharmacy, he noticed Greg's cane lying on the ground, and walked over: Greg was sitting on the floor, sorting his way through a pile of medications, opening each pack and looking at it and putting it to one side.

"Cuddy got you doing inventory?" Wilson asked. He glanced at his watch: in ten minutes Greg was going to be late for clinic duty, again.

"Nope," Greg said: he hardly looked up. "Trying to solve that kid s case."

"The gout medicine OD?" Wilson checked. He was fairly sure there wouldn't have been another one.

"Yeah." Greg went on looking.

"The fact that I know that it's a gout medicine OD would seem to indicate that the case is already solved."

"Well, you'd be wrong."

It wasn't Greg, Wilson realized, with an interested grin: it was Doctor House. So this was how Greg had acquired so many punishments for being insubordinate and insolent. With any luck, if Wilson went on standing here, someone else would notice, and he might get to see what happened when Greg got whipped: granted he didn't want to be held responsible for it, but if Cuddy ordered it and Wilson just happened to be there...

"What about the fact that the kid is now, I believe the technical term is, not sick?" Wilson kept his voice level.

"You know how many forms of colchicine there are on the market?" Greg asked, without stopping his work.

"Stop it," Wilson said, knowing Doctor House wouldn't.

"Neither do I, but it's a lot. Pills, powders, liquids, IV fluids.... Somewhere at a party, in his coffee, up his nose, in his ear, this kid had some."

"So, you're not happy with your Ecstasy theory?" Wilson asked. At this point, he didn't much care.

"He said he used it twice."

"People lie." Wilson turned to scan the room and saw the pharmacist out of the corner of his eye, talking casually, carrying a cup of coffee. He wondered what would happen when the man got back and saw what Greg had been doing.

"Yeah, but if you're gonna lie, it's - "

The pharmacist had finished his conversation. He would be coming over soon. Wilson cut Greg off. "You know what, I'm not interested."

Greg looked up. "Not curious?"

Wilson shook his head, half-smiling. "No, because I'm well-adjusted." He walked off: stopped near enough to hear the pharmacist shout in annoyance: and stood, watching, as two security guards moved in. He could be a good guy in Greg's eyes and step in to rescue him - or he could simply walk off and find out, tomorrow, what Greg was like after a well-deserved whipping.

There would be plenty of other times to be the good guy. Wilson smiled and walked away.

_TBC_


	4. 14 Maternity

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.3 Maternity**

It wasn't often that the Diagnostics slave made the mistake of using the elevators. Lim grinned when he saw him: Greg ducked his head and took a step back into the corner, as if he could hope to be overlooked. "Just what I wanted," Lim said, and caught him by the wrist. "Come on to the Ob-Gyn lounge for a ... consult."

Kubisak was the only other doctor there: he looked up as Lim came in, Greg in tow. "We got him?"

"Clinic hours are over till eight," Lim said. "Diagnostics isn't busy: I saw them all sitting round doing nothing." He took the cane out of Greg's hand and tossed it over towards the door, pushing Greg down on to his knees.

"Let him sit on his ass," Kubisak said. "Last time he wasn't good for more than one round if his weight was on his bad leg."

"Okay." Lim pushed Greg's shoulder: the slave shifted position, looking up at them, until he was sitting down with his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands folded in his lap. "Put your hands on the floor by your side," Lim said, "No copping a free feel." He unzipped his pants, manoevered his cock out, and stood over the man, pushing the hardening length into his mouth. The slave was good at it: tongue and lips busy, pushing his head forward, deep-throating: in only a few minutes, Lim caught at his head, gripping to keep his balance and thrust hard inside, coming with a rush. Kubisak took his turn, not complaining about sloppy seconds. Lim turned away, getting bottled water out of the fridge. He'd never cared for watching another man have sex.

"You want him again?" Kubisak asked: Lim turned back to see Kubisak tidy himself back into his pants. The man was sitting where Kubisak had left him, wet and messy around the mouth, hands still flat on the floor by his side.

"Not right now," Lim said, handing Kubisak a bottle of water. He drank about half of it in a few thirsty swallows, and handed the remainder to the slave, tapping it against the side of his face: "Get yourself cleaned up. So, the Hartigs?"

"Their baby gets a fever." Getting a free blow-job had immeasureably improved the afternoon, but still.

"Wait, don't tell me." Kubisak sounded like he knew the story. "Their kid had a seizure."

"Yep. The parents, of course, start freaking and I have to deal with that for an hour." Then again, if he'd got to leave an hour earlier, he'd have missed catching Greg in the elevator.

"Like it was your fault," Kubisak said sympathetically.

"She was perfect when I delivered her. If you want to blame someone, blame the pediatrician." Of course it was human nature to take it out on the person to hand: Lim understood that, but it didn't keep him from being annoyed about it.

"So, how's the kid now?"

"Bowel obstruction, she's under observation, she'll be fine."

"Pediatrician'll take all the credit," Kubisak said, amused.

They both looked up as the door closed: the slave had left, without asking permission.

---------

Wilson was not expecting to see Greg in his own office. He glanced at his watch: about an hour since the clinic shift was over. "Hello," he said, as Greg was standing by the door, not moving further into the room.

"I want an escort up to pediatrics," Greg said.

"Isn't that what your fellows are supposed to be for?" But Wilson was standing up. Greg's last whipping had been eight days ago: to Wilson's surprise and disappointment, Greg didn't even seem to react to it. Wilson hadn't witnessed it, of course, but he assumed it had been a judicial twenty lashes, and Greg _should_ have been showing some signs of pain or weakness the next day.

"I just want to check out a couple of babies," Greg said.

"Okay," Wilson said. "And you're okay that we take the elevator?"

"If you're with me," Greg said, very promptly.

Pediatric intensive care had two babies in it, newborns. "I was in the Ob/Gyn lounge and heard them talking about them," Greg said. He barely glanced at their charts, and he didn't touch the baby. "Exhibit A: Baby girl Hartig. Term baby, 42 hours old. Went into seizures 6 hours ago, brought into the intensive care, diagnosed with obstruction of the small bowel."

"I'm still amazed you're in the same room with a patient," Wilson said pleasantly.

"People don t bug me until they get teeth," Greg said, and bared his own in a small humourless smile. "Exhibit B: Baby boy Hausen. Another term baby, 48 hours old. Brought into the NICU before the Hartig baby: fever of unknown origin, 101 degrees, trending upwards."

"Wow," Wilson said. "That is amazing. You hung out in the OB/GYN lounge and heard about two sick babies. It's eerie." He meant to check the Hausen baby's temperature by hand, but Doctor House said sharply "Don t touch that."

"All right..." Wilson drew his hand away.

"We have an infection spreading in the hospital."

"These kids have totally unrelated illnesses."

"They fell sick within four hours of each other. They had the same delivery rooms, maternity rooms are neighboring, so transmission's possible. They have the same symptoms."

"The Hartig girl has a bowel obstruction," Wilson corrected. "No matter how close their beds are, I'm pretty sure kids can t share a blockage." He was fairly sure by now that Greg was making it up to have some excuse for spending time in a doctor's lounge: Diagnostics didn't have one, for obvious reasons.

"What does bowel obstruction on a chart indicate?" Greg asked, in the tone of someone asking a rhetorical question.

"Well, normally, I'd say it indicates a patient's bowel is obstructed, but I'm pretty sure you have some deeper truth to impart." Wilson was more or less amused: he was between appointments, but he wasn't catching up with paperwork.

"It means that some random doctor of indeterminate skill thinks that the patient's bowel is obstructed."

Wilson laughed out loud. "Okay, you re upset because they threw you out of their lounge."

Greg was flicking through the baby's paperwork. "Look at the x-ray. It's a normal gas pattern."

"You want," Wilson offered, "I can get you a key to the oncology lounge." He liked that idea: Greg off his own territory, in a more relaxing environment. He'd warn the other oncologists to leave him alone. Greg was saying something about air in the column. Wilson looked at him fondly: there was a comfortable couch in the oncology lounge that he could imagine sitting on with Greg, now he thought of it, with Greg tucked up against him and his arms round him. "We re getting TiVo," he offered.

"If it's air," Greg said monomaniacally, "no bowel obstruction."

Wilson sighed and joined in. "Even if it is air, it could have been there before the obstruction."

"No," Greg said. "Something's infected both these infants. Walk me down to Cuddy's office, will you?"

---------

House was late back from his first clinic shift: this wasn't unusual. Cameron was still responding to his mail. Chase was asleep. Foreman had decided it was a good time to plan out his next neurology paper.

House came in, looking damp and dishevelled, and glanced round at the three of them: Cameron stood up, and Foreman echoed her response. House picked up the book Foreman had been consulting, and threw it at Chase, waking him up. "Get up! We re going hunting."

"For what?" Foreman asked.

"Wabbits."

"Chase, Cameron, you check the rooms on this side: Foreman, you're with me."

In the first room they went into, both the parents were asleep; the baby was in a cot at the foot of the bed. Doctor House picked up the baby, who started to cry - even to Foreman's ears, a healthy yell.

The parents woke up and stared: a dishevelled, collared man dressed like a janitor, holding their baby.

"Hi," House said. "Bye." He handed Foreman the baby. "He's screaming, he's fine," he added, and went out: Foreman smiled awkwardly. "Good looking baby," he said, and put the infant back into the cot.

They visited three more rooms, finding healthy babies and tired parents: outside the fourth room, Foreman nearly bumped into Doctor Kubisak. "Sorry," he said apologetically, until he realised the reason Kubisak wasn't moving was that House wasn't moving, and House wasn't moving because he was backed up against the wall.

"Did you come back for more, Greg?" Kubisak asked. "You left rather impolitely last time." He leaned forward, planting a hand on the wall beside House's head. "Maybe we should teach you better manners?"

"Excuse me," Foreman said, loudly. Not that he cared, but this was even more of a waste of his time than looking for sick babies.

"Dammit," Kubisak said, apparently recognising him. "Okay, Greg. Some other time." He walked off, with an annoyed glance back. House picked himself up from the wall, and gave Foreman a nod. "Next," was all he said.

"That happen to you often?" Foreman asked curiously. He didn't find House at all appealling himself, but some people couldn't resist using a slave for sex: there was something about the inability to resist pursuit, apparently.

"None of your damn business," House snapped.

They met up with chase and Cameron at the end of the hall. "Good news, no epidemic," Chase said cheerily.

"Tragic, huh?" Foreman said. He wanted to be back at his laptop.

"Overflow rooms, third floor," House said, and went into the elevator. He held down the open door button, and waved them to join him,

"This imaginary infection has spread to the next floor?" Foreman asked Chase and Cameron's backs... they were following House in. Foreman sighed and joined them.

---------

The epidemic that wasn't: Wilson was still contemplating that. Greg had been hanging out in the Ob/Gyn lounge, overheard two doctors talking, figured out two sick babies had been infected from the same source, and saved the lives of all but one of the babies who had been infected. Cuddy had started turning maternity patients away in short order.

"I think I definitely want you to hang out in the oncology lounge," Wilson told Greg, sitting down next to him on the couch in the maternity ward's waiting area. He eyed him thoughtfully. Greg was wearing the polo-neck he was allowed to have in clinic hours.

Greg glanced back at him for an instant, and went on scanning the room. "Cuddy gave me today off."

"Which explains why you're here."

"I'm in the haystack." House didn't take his eyes off the room.

"Ah, because now you know you're looking for a needle," Wilson said, pleased with himself.

"Right."

"If I tell you to 'let it go', it won't make any difference, will it?" Wilson inquired.

"Enteroviruses are spread by humans. Fecal, oral... could be respiratory secretions, though."

"So, Cuddy got stool samples from the whole staff. Just wait until they come back."

"That won't do it."

"Why not?"

"Whoever the shedder is - they're so virulent, the stool couldn't have passed unnoticed." Greg didn't even seem to register a pun. He was watching the room, and everyone passing through, and clearly thinking: Wilson wondered for the first time what he'd been like before he was enslaved. "And the babies didn t share any common personnel," Greg added. He wasn't paying any attention to Wilson, and he evidently wasn't going to. "That's what's weird."

Wilson shrugged. "Yeah, yeah. _That's_ what's weird." He stood up. "I want to talk to you later," he said. "When you're through playing in the haystack."

Someone was coughing. Not far away, not in sight. Wilson might not have noticed, but he saw Greg's head turn and his gaze focus: there was an old lady, one of the hospital volunteers, pushing a cart of teddy-bears. They were small, newborn-sized. Wilson glanced down at Greg, and saw him getting to his feet, angling his cane and moving faster than Wilson would have supposed.

The old lady looked at them, and said to Wilson "Can I help you?"

"I think you need to go talk to Doctor Cuddy," Wilson said.

"Me?"

"Yes," Greg said. He was leaning forward. "Take your bears."

"Well, really," the lady said.

But she went, in the end, after Wilson exercised his best charm. He was about to congratulate Greg, but the man turned round and headed for the stairwell. He was through the doors before Wilson caught up with him.

"You know, you could use the elevator," Wilson began, and met a glare.

"I don't want to use the elevator," Greg said. "I don't want to _hang out_ in the doctors' lounges. I do my job. I just want people to _leave me alone_."

Wilson stood thoughtfully at the top of the stairs, listening to the cane and the footsteps moving down. He smiled.

_TBC..._


	5. 15 Damned if you do

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.5 Damned if you do**

Julie is having people over for Christmas dinner.

How you can tell your Christian wife is on the brink of divorcing you, Wilson thought: when she invites you to Christmas dinner in your own home, and makes it clear in the form of the invitation that she doesn't care whether or not you show up.

He hasn't been paying as much attention to Diagnostics for a little while. He sent a memo to Cuddy pointing out oncology's need for a third fellowship, and he expected to get a response to that by the new year.

Diagnostics is treating a nun. Or several nuns.

Cameron, or Chase, or Foreman - or possibly all three of the over-qualified doctors who work in Diagnostics - decorated the glass box with holly and candy canes. But Greg is working off the backlog of clinic hours with extra Christmas shifts to cover doctors who want the time off: Wilson rarely sees him except when he's actually with one of the nuns.

Wilson is bored. He went out to the nearest Starbucks and got two of their red cup coffees, gingerbread latte and eggnog latte, not quite admitting to himself what he planned until he walked into the clinic - he had already done his hours for this week - and saw Greg sitting at the desk doing his charting.

Greg looked up and saw him, but said nothing. Wilson put the two red cups down on the desk. "Gingerbread or eggnog?"

Nurse Previn looked up. She stared at Wilson, an uncomfortable, assessing gaze. Greg picked up the eggnog latte. He looked up at Wilson with a kind of surprised happiness that's awfully endearing, in a way.

"How's the nun?"

"She went back to her nunnery," Greg said. He drank the eggnog latte. The look of happiness was gone. "Cuddy figured it was better to treat the symptoms. The symptoms got better."

----------

Doctor Cuddy paged Wilson to her office. "You've been showing a lot of interest in Greg."

Wilson shrugged and folded his hands across his stomach. He has found out why Greg stays out of the elevator: and what happens to him in staff lounges. Apparently Greg is very good with his tongue. "He's an interesting man, don't you think? In an interesting situation."

"He is the property of the hospital. Hands off."

"You are aware that he gets mouth-fucked on a regular basis?" Wilson inquired.

Cuddy did not even frown. She said with clarity, with little emotion, "I cannot prevent staff at this hospital from making use of a slave owned by the hospital in a way that's perfectly legal, causes no damage to the slave, and does not interfere with the slave's work. And I wouldn't want to try. What you appear to be trying, however, will certainly both damage the slave and interfere with his work."

"Buying him coffee?"

"Trying to establish a relationship with him." Cuddy folded her hands on her desk. Her face was sober. "I bought him twelve years ago for this hospital. It was my first major purchase as administrator, and it proved extremely successful. A year or so after I bought him, he came to the attention of one of the hospital's legal staff, Warner."

Wilson shook his head: "I don't know him."

"Her. She asked my permission to extend the relationship: I agreed so long as it didn't interfere with his work: and for five or six years this worked extremely well. Greg was relaxed, happy, worked hard, and when I allowed him home visits with Warner, would voluntarily work extra shifts to be allowed time off at the weekends."

"Sounds ideal," Wilson said. "And your point is...?" He didn't precisely want this kind of relationship with Greg: he was just intrigued that someone else had.

"Warner decided to get married."

"...but slaves aren't allowed to marry?" Wilson said, and then realized what Cuddy must mean.

"Fortunately," Cuddy said, "Warner had the sense to realize she could not continue to work here. She resigned, told Greg, and left. While I could in a way sympathize with Greg's reaction - "

WIlson's realized his mouth was hanging open.

"He is hospital property," Cuddy said. "This hospital invested, and continues to invest, a great deal of money in having the best diagnostics department in the country. We gain a lot by having Greg as one of our assets. But for two years after Warner left to get married, he was not a valuable asset: he had to be continually kept under extremely strict discipline to prevent him from running away, self-harming, or other forms of destructive behavior. One reason why the Diagnostics department now has so many fellows - yes, I read your memo - is that we must assume that Greg's value as an asset is time-limited: we need him to pass on what he does. At the moment, he's achieved a certain kind of balance." She paused. "If all you wanted from him was sex, that probably wouldn't disturb his balance."

"So because I want to be nice to him," Wilson said, a little breathless, "I can't have him?"

"_Do_ you want to be nice to him?" Cuddy asked. After a few minutes, she looked back down at her paperwork. Wilson got up and left.

Of course he didn't. _Nice_ wasn't what he wanted at all.

----------

On Christmas Eve, Wilson went out to the monastery. The nun who had been sick was in the infirmary, still sick. They were happy to tell him that there had been no new painting, no new curtains, no new building, nothing had changed except the new copper pans in the refectory that they had already told the doctors about. They made him tea, and he found an answer.

"Take away the cardiac arrest caused by the figwort tea," he told Greg. "What do you have left?"

"All the rest of the symptoms can be explained by a severe long-term allergic reaction." Greg stood up and went to the white board. He and Wilson were alone in the Diagnostics box. "Something she was exposed to here in the hospital as well as the monastery." His shoulders moved, almost a shrug. "If I had her here, I'd put her in a clean room."

"I got you a Christmas present," Wilson said.

Greg looked at him indifferently. "You're Jewish."

"Hannukah present. What do you care? One nun, gift-wrapped. She's being transferred back here. Put her in a clean room."

Greg looked at him, eyes widening. That look of incredulous pleasure. Wilson had to figure out to how to get that on demand.

"Okay," Greg said. "Let's go figure out how to save a nun."

----------

On Christmas Day, Wilson tracked House down to the clean room: he was standing outside it, looking through the window. He didn't appear to notice when Wilson stopped beside him, but after a minute he said "How do you get an allergic reaction in a clean room?"

"Maybe it was the preservatives in the IV?"

"Checked that."

"Latex tubing?"

"Checked that. Checked everything."

Wilson thought about it. He'd been quite impressed with himself for remembering the correlation between self-medicating on figwort tea and cardiac arrest after epinephrine, but now he was getting bored. In an hour or so he would have to make up his mind if he was going home to Julie's Christmas dinner, or staying here to avoid all her friends. And her. "Well, it could be mast-cell leukemia. It can cause anaphylaxis."

"Checked the blood levels." Greg had never looked at Wilson once. "It's not leukemia."

"Maybe it's just divine will."

Greg snorted. It was a thoroughly atheistic snort, holding more contemptuous disbelief that Wilson had imagined could exist in one nose. He turned to look at Greg, and to his surprise, he saw no apology or even awareness in Greg's face. He had never seen a more focussed gaze.

"Maybe she's allergic to God," Wilson needled him.

----------

"How's the Sister?" Wilson asked.

Greg was sitting by himself in the Diagnostics office, spinning a candy cane on the table in front of him. He looked up."Kidneys functioning, heart rate is normal. You know how it is with nuns: you take out their IUDs and they bounce right back."

"Great." Wilson came in and sat down. "You want to come over to my office for Christmas dinner?"

Greg stared at him, silent for a long moment, wide-eyed. He said, after that long moment, "Your wife doesn't mind being alone at Christmas?"

"I'm a doctor, she's used to being alone."

Greg looked down at the table and spun the candy cane again.

"I don't want to talk about it," Wilson said.

"Neither do I," Greg said, almost inaudibly.

The door opened. Wilson glanced up. Cuddy was dressed for going home. She eyed both of them, but spoke to Greg: "You did good with the nun. Congratulations."

Greg stood up. He ducked his head, briefly. "Thank you."

"Merry Christmas, Doctor House," Cuddy said. "Doctor Wilson." She closed the door gently, and Greg watched her out of sight before he sat down again.

"Good night. That was sweet," Wilson observed.

Greg looked at him again. He shrugged. "So... food? In your office?"

Snow was falling gently on the balcony: Wilson had got the local Thai restaurant to deliver a double banquet. He let Greg have the sofa patients sat on when Wilson had bad news: Wilson pulled his desk chair round to sit the other side of the table. Greg seemed skittish enough without sitting next to him.

Soon, though. Whatever Cuddy thought about it: Wilson was going to find a way to let it happen. Soon.

_TBC_


	6. 16 The Socratic Method

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.6 The Socratic Method**

The glass wall of the Diagnostics department meant the fellows could see Greg approaching: head bowed, shoulders hunched, moving unobtrusively through the hospital corridor.

When - rarely - they saw him approach looking like Doctor House - head up, grim-faced, faster than you'd think a lame man could move - it meant trouble. It meant the slave was going to rake down one of the doctors who, by hospital policy, had to regard themselves as working for him. Chase took this kind of treatment with amusement: nothing seemed to shake Cameron's upfront pity for the man (and sure, he had a hard time if you thought of him as a fellow doctor, but as a slave? He had a very soft berth): but Foreman found it infuriating.

Leaving a fellowship after less than a year was a bad career move. Being fired from one, even worse. Whatever else "Doctor House" was, he was certainly a brilliant diagnostician. Anything was tolerable for a year.

Doctor House opened the door, walked in, fixed Foreman with a glare, and said "I just spoke to Luke. Or rather he spoke to me. The doctor who took his mom's blood used Haldol. That would be you, right?"

Foreman nodded. "Chase and Cameron are getting the lab to run the tests now."

Doctor House shut the door. His voice held a contempt that ripped up Foreman's spine. "So, when I said, 'no psych meds,' I'm just curious - which word _didn't_ you understand?"

"The Haldol had nothing to do with the bleed," Foreman said. It took all his concentration to speak with politeness to a slave who was speaking to him with such disrespect, and if he sounded patronizing, it was probably good for the slave. "You know that. I used it purely as a chemical restraint."

"Oh, great, well, that s good to hear. So she won't experience any of those pesky little side effects you get when your motives _aren't_ pure."

Foreman stared. "Those side effects are so rare!"

"Passing out," Doctor House said. "Increased confusion. Depression. That s not going to happen." He snarled. "That's not going to screw up our diagnosis, because _you_ just used it to _restrain_ her. I'm so relieved!"

Foreman could almost feel the ground of self-righteousness dropping out from under his feet. "She spit in my face!"

Doctor House took two steps closer to him, and looked him up and down. "It must have been so frightening for you."

"What was I supposed to do?" She had been screaming, struggling, fighting - "Tie her down?"

"_Yes!_" House exploded. "Anything but give her drugs - that's basically my point!"

"I used my best judgement with a violent patient."

"It turns out your best judgment is not good enough. Here's an idea next time, use _mine_."

Down the corridor, through the glass wall, Chase and Cameron were ambling along together, talking casually: Chase stopped, and Foreman realized he must be able to see House and Foreman through the glass.

House turned, following Foreman's gaze, and waved at Chase and Cameron to come on. He didn't say anything more to Foreman, though from the way Chase grinned and Cameron looked sorry, both of them could tell he'd just been scolded.

By a _slave_.

"Why did the patient bleed out?" Doctor House demanded.

"The clotting studies so far are normal," Cameron said.

By a slave who was _right_.

"Well, cover your ears if you don't want me to spoil the ending. Everything was normal, except for prolonged PT time, which means what?"

Foreman shifted on his feet. Chase was the longest-surviving fellow of this department: others had been fired within the year. Because they'd got across "Doctor House". Who'd just raked Foreman down as savagely as he'd ever *been* told off. "Usually it means, whoever drew the blood didn't do it right."

"Oh, that's right," Doctor House said. "Because... _you_ drew the blood." He sounded sarcastic, but the flavor of contempt wasn't there. "But you were precise, because you knew the tube was purely for the PT study."

"That's right," Foreman said, stolidly.

"And I'm right with you," Doctor House said. "I trust this result. For two reasons. A, because you are a good doctor, and B, because five milligrams of IV Haldol makes for a spectacularly cooperative patient. The prolonged PT time makes me think she's got a vitamin K deficiency."

"Vitamin K would explain the bleed but not the clot," Cameron said.

"Without vitamin K, protein C doesn t work," House said. "Without protein C, she clots. Clotting and thinning, all at the same time."

"What about another drug interacting with heparin, an antibiotic like ampicillin? That would..."

"Clever, but she s not on ampicillin."

Cameron looked down at her notes. "Two months ago, she complained of a sore throat. And Luke got her ampicillin."

"Which she refused to take," House said.

"Luke just said she didn t take it. What is it, everybody lies, except for schizophrenics and their children?"

Chase spoke for the first time. He had been watching Foreman, with an odd expression on his face. Disapproval? Jealousy? "It's more likely than malnourishment. Why not scurvy or the plague?"

"Gee, I wish my idea was as cool and with it as yours," Doctor House said. "What is yours, by the way? Do you have one?"

"Alcohol," Chase said. "Simple. It causes immobility, which explains the DVT. It also causes cirrhosis which explains the bleed and the prolonged PT time. Let's ultrasound the liver."

"Three theories," House said. He glanced at Foreman. "You and Chase check out her place for ampicillin and diet, then ultrasound her liver. Let's find out who's right before she bleeds to death."

-------

Cuddy hadn't said anything to Wilson about spending time with Greg. Julie's new year resolution seemed to be to give marriage another go.

Monday to Friday - and weekends if he had to come in to do his clinic hours or to see patients - Wilson spent five to fifteen minutes with Greg, each day. Five minutes, and he'd bring Greg a cup of coffee and a cookie: fifteen minutes, and he'd ask Greg about his current case. At least once a week, he'd find half an hour to bring a sandwich or talk about one of his own patients. He made no attempt to touch Greg, or to discuss his sexual use: if Cuddy questioned him, she'd get no information about what Wilson wanted.

What he wanted wasn't the same as what Warner had got from Greg: though Wilson supposed that Cuddy was right, any kind of relationship that involved an emotional attachment on Greg's part, would be damaging when it ended.

But then, did it need to end? Warner had terminated her relationship with Greg because she wanted to get married, and either the husband didn't want Warner to use a slave at work... or Greg had been led to think his relationship with Warner was more than that of a slave. Greg was aware Wilson was married: if his relationship with Julie came to an end, there was no reason he had to treat Greg any differently. Greg's relationship with Wilson would never be friendly: Wilson would never lead Greg to think that he was anything more to Wilson than an interesting and attractive slave. If that kept Greg stable, Cuddy had no reason to object.

Wilson had fifteen minutes. He had brought Greg a latte and a chocolate-macademia cookie, and sat down with his own coffee, and Greg started telling him about a middle-aged drunk with a deep-vein thrombosis and schizophrenia.

Greg was breaking the cookie absently into four pieces. "On the other hand, we don't really know anything about schizophrenia, so maybe it is connected."

Wilson nodded. "Well, the schizophrenia explains one mystery why you're so fascinated by a woman with a bump in her leg. Like Picasso deciding to whitewash a fence."

"Thanks," Greg said, lifting his eyebrows and taking a bite of one piece of cookie. "I'm more of a Leroy Neiman man. And it is only about the DVT. She's 38 years old, she should be..."

"Right. Solve this one and you re on your way to Stockholm," Wilson said. He was almost sorry for that comment when Greg paused a moment, looking at him with that pale-eyed gaze which Wilson had assumed was meant to be intimidating. He was no longer sure about that.

"We don t even know how to treat schizophrenia," Greg said. "Come on! Fumigation of the vagina?"

Of course Greg couldn't have any idea that this could have any personal implications. Wilson picked up one of the pieces of cookie, and held it between his fingers. The fragile structure of sugar, fat, and flour could be crushed in an instant.

"Two thousand years ago," Greg said, taking another piece of cookie, "that's how Galen treated schizophrenics the Marcus Welby of ancient Greece."

"Oh," Wilson said. He hadn't drunk from his coffee cup: he would have to put down the piece of cookie. "Clearly you're not interested."

"I'm interested," Greg said. "I'm interested in how voices in the head could be caused by malposition of the uterus."

Wilson smiled, briefly, feeling the rough surface of the cookie with his fingertips. "There's a better place for it?"

"And now what have we got?" Greg picked up the third piece of cookie. "We've got lobotomies, rubber rooms, electric shock, my my - " he popped the bit into his mouth, and said, crunching on crumbs, "Galen was so primitive." He looked at Wilson. "You think I'm interested because of the schizophrenia."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure," Wilson said.

"Galen was pretty sure about the fumigation thing. Are you eating that cookie or making love to it?"

Wilson stood up. The fifteen minutes were almost up. "You have it," he said, leaned forward, and pushed it directly into Greg's mouth. He hadn't planned to do that, but the expression of surprise on Greg's face was almost as good as pleasure.

-------

How they were going to pay for a hospital stay this prolonged was something Luke had figured out already he couldn't handle: they'd have to move, and this time he'd just tell everyone he was 18, right from the start, no exceptions.

Doctor Foreman had asked for Luke's key and permission to search for toxins: Doctor Chase had promised that whatever they found was privileged - doctor/patient information. Luke nearly told them about the spare spare key hidden by the front door, but in the end just surrendered his key. He kept the place clean.

They came back with a frozen burger. Doctor House met him in the oncology lounge, with the burger reheating in the cancer doctors' microwave. There was no one else there.

Doctor House showed him the burger: Luke nodded. "That's the only thing she'll eat."

"Ah. Problem is, you can't actually live on this stuff."

"I checked it out." Back when Mom was herself, she had always said, read the labels on the box, look at what the main ingredient is, look at the next three listed. "I looked on the box, all the nutritional values were solid. There s plenty of protein, and calories..." An adult woman was supposed to get at least 1500 calories a day. One of these burgers was 514 calories. So three each day, one each meal, and no more endless fights with shaking, incoherent mom who screamed and fought and accused him of poisoning her...

"Yeah, vitamin A and C, but no K. That's why your mom got sick."

Luke had never heard of Vitamin K. He swallowed. Okay, it was one more thing. "So, what's the plan?"

"Load her up with vitamin K," Doctor House said. He sounded pleased.

"That's it?"

"If it all checks out, you can take her home in a couple of days."

Luke swallowed again. All the last few days - all the expense and worry and having to deal with people who looked at him and he was pretty sure they could tell he wasn't 18 yet... and he could have avoided it if he'd just tried harder to find something else she would eat.

"Oh God," Doctor House said, "you're upset about something." His face had an odd, screwed-up expression. "You're going to open up to me now, aren't you?"

Luke barely heard. They were more at hazard now than they'd ever been before, and it was all his fault.

"Here we go," Doctor House said. He sounded bored, but his eyes on Luke were anything but. "Okay, I'm going to say this once. You have done a very good job taking care of your mother. If this was all she'd eat, then what else could you do?" He smiled, and his voice changed again: "Gosh, just being a kid is a full-time job..."

Luke glared at him. "Shut up! I'm 18, I should be able to take care of my mom! I almost killed her."

"Good example." House dropped the unfriendly, teasing note. He spoke as if they were just two people in a room. "Just the time it takes to express those ridiculous self-centered teenage ideas..." He picked up the burger and bit into it, saying through a full mouth, "I don't envy you your schedule. No pickles."

Luke heard himself saying "My mom doesn't like them either."

House nodded and went on eating. "Smart woman."

"Before she got sick, I didn't like how bossy she was, always telling me what to do, the right way to do it. Never thought I d miss that." He picked up his backpack, and realized too late that he had done so with his damaged wrist.

"You should get that looked at." House put down what was left of the burger, and took hold of Luke's arm. He had long, strong fingers: he examined and rotated the bones. "Don't think it's broken. Interesting thing about bones, kid. If you know enough about them, you can tell how old someone really is. Exactly how old." He stepped back. Every time Luke had seen Doctor House, he had been wearing a light polo-neck - dark-blue, grey. He pulled it off: and suddenly it was obvious why he'd never let Luke see his throat. "I'm supposed to wear this around patients," House said. "Tends to reduce their confidence in their doctor if they know he's basically just a piece of hospital equipment. Let me explain something to you, kid: no one here believes you're over 18. Everyone is willing to go along with the creative fiction because they can't prove you're not and they need to deal with someone who isn't three apples short of a picnic. So go big, go 21. That way you won't need your crazy mom to help you buy vodka." He tucked the polo-neck under his arm and ran his finger round the collar on his throat, grinning at Luke unpleasantly. "You're not even 15 yet, are you?"

"Last week," Luke said, grasping at the edges of his picture of the world. "I was fifteen last week."

"Happy birthday to both of us," House said.

"Great." Luke swallowed, unable to take his eyes off the collar, "Thanks for the tip." He fished his notebook out of his backpack. "Now, when I bring my mom home, is there anything I need to know about taking care of her?"

"Your biggest worry isn't the booze. You're 15, basically no mom. Child Welfare let kids get away with that, well, they wouldn t need those nice foster homes, and that would make them sad."

"They'd sell her," Luke said. "My life is working."

"Not the word I'd use. Most 15 year old kids are doing what they re supposed to be doing, you know, they're huffing glue, catching crabs..."

"If you turn me in, I'll sue you," Luke said suddenly. "That s privileged information."

"You can't sue me," House said. "I'm hospital property. Oh relax. I'm not going to let anyone sell your mom."

"But..." Luke swallowed again. He hadn't known this man was a slave. He was a doctor. He worked in a hospital. People treated him like a doctor. "What if this hospital bought me? You don't have it that bad."

House turned away, sharply. Luke couldn't see his face. "On a scale of one to ten... it was about the third worst thing that ever happened to me. Relax, Luke. I'm not going to let anyone sell your mom or you either."

-------

Wilson had wondered how Greg would react to his return. He was embarrassed about the cookie incident: he hadn't hurt Greg, but it wasn't something he'd intended to do. The first time he pushed his fingers into Greg's mouth should have been planned better.

He had planned to visit Greg again with coffee and a candy bar, but Greg came to him. He was clutching an ultrasound image in his free hand, and his cane in the other.

"Doctor Wilson. Could you look at this?"

A solid mass in the liver: Chase and Cameron had diagnosed cancer, and Greg wanted an oncologist's opinion. And instead of going to Cuddy to ask for access, he'd come directly to Wilson.

It was cancer: a tumor so obvious - and probably too large to be operated on - that most likely Greg hadn't needed the second opinion. Wilson suppressed a grin. "Heard you dropped by the oncology lounge yesterday," Wilson offered. (Someone had complained that cheap microwave-burger wrappings and half a burger had been left in an open garbage bin: someone else had accused him of letting the Diagnostics slave in there: Wilson hadn't, in fact, given Greg a key - but the spare key from his office had been removed from its hiding place and left on his desk.)

"Heard a rumor there was coffee," Greg said. He glanced sideways at Wilson. "Turned out not to be true."

"vitamin K caused the DVT," Wilson said professionally, "and aggravated the liver. But the tumor s the real reason for the bleed. The tumor's the problem." He tapped the ultrasound. "You want me to tell the patient?"

Greg tagged along. The boy - the patient's son - was coming down the hall towards then, tears streaming down his face. Greg stopped: Wilson halted a pace or two further on. The boy was flanked by two suited government workers.

"You said you wouldn't call - " the boy snarled as he passed Greg. "You're a real bastard, you know?"

Greg turned and stared after the three of them. "Yeah. I get that a lot." He turned again, and went on, saying out loud "I don't think Mom's crazy."

WIlson followed him. "Got any reason for that decision?"

"I need to check the phone records," Greg said, cryptically. "But I think she just turned her son in to the state."

"Why would doing that make her not crazy?"

"Someone needs to take care of him," Greg said. "She can't. And if he stays with her, after this, any time in the next three years, if they miss a debt recovery payment, the agencies could foreclose on him to pay her debt. They can't do that if he's a ward of the state because Mom's crazy."

"Schizophrenics can make rational decisions."

"On the small stuff, yeah, when to sleep, what to drink, no lemonade but I'll take some hemlock if you ve got it." He turned away. "You don't need to tell her she's got cancer. Chase or Foreman already did." Greg was walking back towards Diagnostics, still talking. "Giving up your son, because it's better for him it's so sane, so rational. Self-sacrifice is not a symptom of schizophrenia... it excludes the diagnosis."

"She's not schizophrenic?" Wilson turned back.

"She's 36 years old when she first presents..."

"It's a little late, but within the parameters."

Greg shook his head. They were back at the Diagnostics office. "The internist sends her to a shrink, one shrink sends her to the next, she tells them all she's not crazy, the drugs don't work and why would they if she's not a head case? She got clearer when I took her off the psych meds." He pushed the Diagnostics door open, and looked at Wilson. "You think _I'm_ crazy."

"Well, yeah, but that's not the problem. Didn't we just leave your office?"

"I like to walk," Greg said, and went inside. Wilson glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes over, for the day: contact initiated by Greg.

-------

The patient was diagnosed with Wilson's disease: and unexpectedly, Bergen had agreed to operate to remove the tumor. Wilson had thought it was beyond the operable size.

He had intended to offer Greg coffee in the oncology lounge before he had to go do his evening clinic hours, but all three fellows were still in the Diagnostics office, finishing off the paperwork: Wilson hesitated, wondering if it would make any difference if he skipped a day.

Doctor Cuddy's feet sounded brisk and unforgiving: Wilson didn't move away, thinking it would look more suspicious if he seemed to be trying to escape attention. She swept past Wilson, adding over her shoulder "You should come in and hear this, Doctor Wilson."

Wilson shrugged and followed her in.

"Greg," Cuddy said.

Chase stood up. Cuddy waved him back down again: Cameron and Foreman, who had shifted in their seats, stayed where they were. Wilson glanced at a movement down the corridor.

Greg got to his feet. He still looked like Doctor House. "What can I do for you, Doctor Cuddy?"

"Doctor Bergen reported to me that the tumor he removed from Ms Palmeiro's liver was well over 5 centimeters - once the alcohol that had been injected into it had drained from the cells. Apparently, alcohol dries out the tumor cells, causing them to shrink, and making the tumor appear temporarily smaller - within the operable size."

"Really?" Doctor House smiled.

"You requisitioned 20cc of ethanol - what patient was that for? Or are you planning a party?"

"Sure. Celebrating that my patient lived."

"You shrunk the tumor," Cuddy said.

"Only way to get the guy to do the surgery," Doctor House said.

"You committed fraud, Greg. There is a reason that we have these guidelines."

"I know," Doctor House said. "To save lives. Specifically doctors' lives, and not just their lives but their lifestyles. Wouldn t want to operate on anyone really sick they might die and spoil our stats."

"Doctor Bergen had a right to know what he is operating on."

"True. I got all focused on her right to live, and forgot. You do what you think is right."

"Doctor Bergen is reporting your action to the Ethics Committee, which will meet in two days. You will not have to appear before the Ethics Committee, but I will, to answer for the breach of ethics committed by a hospital asset I'm responsible for." Cuddy glanced down the hall and gestured with her hand: the movement Wilson had seen was two security guards, each of them taller than Greg, each of them broader.

Doctor House leaned forward on his cane. "It was a medical decision."

"It was fraud," Cuddy said crisply.

The two guards came in. Wilson saw, fascinated, that Greg was reappearing as Doctor House crumpled: he kept his head up and his eyes fixed on Cuddy. "It was a medical decision." His voice rose. "You_ promised_ - "

"Thirty," Cuddy said.

The guards flanked Greg. One of them took his cane away and put it down on the table: it landed with an audible _clunk_ and Foreman, sitting nearest, scooted his chair back four inches.

"No," Greg said. His voice was a thread. "Doctor Cuddy. You promised - it was a _medical_ decision - " The other guard had snapped shackles on his wrists, clipping his arms together behind his back.

"Greg," Cuddy said. "Thirty tonight. Tomorrow, my office, you tell me and Doctor Bergen you understand what you did wrong and you're sorry."

"No," Greg said. The two guards had hold of him by his upper arms. Greg was swaying on his feet. "No. She lived. My patient _lived_ - "

"If you're not prepared to face Doctor bergen and apologize, Greg, sixty tomorrow." She nodded. The security guards moved. Greg seemed to try to resist, but they pulled him off his feet and for a few paces were literally carrying him, through the door and out of the office. The noise he was making, a thin high whine that was probably not under his conscious control, was still with Wilson even when the door closed behind them and the sound was cut off.

Foreman's chair shifted again. He stood up. "We shouldn't have witnessed that, Doctor Cuddy."

"Sit down," Cuddy said. She looked at Chase, at Cameron, at Foreman, and shot a look at Wilson. "I don't know which of the three of you took part in this fraud. It could have been all of you, or just one. I know Greg went to Doctor Wilson for a consult, and Wilson would have told him the tumor was over the operable guidlelines. I want you - all of you, each one of you - to be clear in your understanding that, when you allowed Greg to shrink the tumor to get Doctor Bergen to operate, you were ensuring that he was going to pay the penalty. You three will report to the clinic tonight, tomorrow, and the next day, and do the hours assigned to you. Doctor Wilson... a word."

"Doctor Cuddy," Cameron said suddenly.

"What is it?"

"You told him... thirty today, sixty tomorrow. Are you going to double up again?"

"No," Cuddy said. She gave Cameron an unreadable look. "Either he'll apologize, and I'll take that to the ethics committee, or he'll have been whipped enough to put him out of action for a week, and I'll report that to the committee. If he goes to ninety, you three will be doing his clinic hours and responding to his consults for a week. Good night."

Wilson followed Cuddy out.

"Did you know he was going to do that?"

"No," Wilson said, rubbing the back of his neck. He wanted to ask: _Can I watch?_ but thought better of it, "Are you going to give him sixty tomorrow?"

"He won't apologize," Cuddy said. She met Wilson's eyes. "You should stay away from him."

_TBC_


	7. 17 Fidelity

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.07 Fidelity**

Wilson had not gone to watch the thirty or the sixty: nor did he make himself conspicuous by going to see Greg in the slave ward, where he would be kept resting on his belly, fastened to the bed, till the marks on his back scabbed over and began to heal. Two days, perhaps three. Customarily, no slave got painkillers for 48 hours after a whipping: they were supposed to feel it, after all.

Most slaves would then go back to work: but Cuddy had said Greg would be incapacitated for a week. The Diagnostics fellows were keeping themselves busy, but without a case, the office next door would be empty after six in the evening.

The wall between the balconies was low enough that Wilson could scramble over it. He checked the door to Greg's cubbyhole: locked.

The balconies were high enough from the ground that the locks on the doors had never been intended as security, either against escape or burglary, just a means of keeping them shut: Wilson had studied the lock on his own balcony door quite extensively. It was a plain, low-tech lock, not wired into the hospital's alarm system. The one on Greg's door looked just like it.

The key Wilson had located turned cleanly in the lock, and the balcony door opened. The tiny room in back of Diagnostics had a narrow bunk fitted to the wall at the right height for Greg to get into and out of, with regulation bedding: and a comfortable Eames chair. Wilson sat down in it and was impressed. It was the only non-regulation thing visible in the room - desk, chair, computer, were all absolutely standard. A hand-washing sink by the door, but without the usual "Not Drinking Water" sign, and a cup with a toothbrush and toothpaste: Greg must use the staff facilities down the hall to keep himself clean. Wilson considered finding out when Greg showered, and decided regretfully that this would be too obvious.

The shelf above the bunk had space for next day's clothes, and a folded towel: Greg must collect them from the laundry unit ahead of time. There was no razor: he probably wasn't allowed one. The hospital had a barber whose function was to groom the slaves to an acceptable level of tidiness, and Greg's unkemptness probably meant he didn't report there regularly.

There were two medical journals on the desk, both of them recently delivered, one in Portugese. Wilson picked himself up from the chair - it really was comfortable, you could practically go to sleep there: Cuddy must have considered that Greg needed it - and began systematically and carefully to search the room for personal items. All slaves had them, if they'd been kept in one place for long enough.

He found them, but not in the usual places: there was a photograph hidden beneath the monitor's stand, a minature black Ipod camouflaged by its color taped to the back of the wall beneath the bunk - he found that by running his hand along the wall, it was quite invisible to the eye - and a small decorative box that didn't open (it rattled: there was something inside it) tucked behind the waste pipe of the sink. There must be headphones, too, but Wilson couldn't find them.

The photograph was of a dark-haired woman smiling at the camera: she was beautiful and half-familiar, as if Wilson had seen her before. Probably Warner, then. There was nothing on the back of the photo. Wilson replaced it where he had found it.

The box he took back to his own office, and kept it for a day: he could not figure out the trick of opening it. No matter, he knew where it was.

The Ipod was an expensive model a few years old - possibly a gift from Warner - and filled with an eclectic collection of classical and rock. Beethoven and the Rolling Stones snarled at each other in random order. The headphones might be concealed in the Diagnostics office, where there were more places to hide things (and a cleaner, finding them, would conclude they belonged to one of the fellows, and leave them be). Wilson kept that for longer, listening and jumping through the music files, trying to figure out some pattern to the collection, but he had to put it back in the end.

--------

On the fifth day after Doctor House had been taken away by two security guards bigger than he was, Cameron saw him walking slowly through the hall from the infirmary. He was dressed as usual when he wasn't going to the clinic: t-shirt, jeans. The dark metal collar encased his throat. He walked more slowly without his cane, one hand resting on his right thigh.

Without discussion, they had all left the cane on the table where the security guard had put it. Cameron got into his way; she had been carrying a patient file with her yesterday, too, though Chase had said it wasn't likely that Greg would be released till today at earliest.

"She s been averaging 18 hours of sleep a day since her admission."

Greg looked at her. His face was very pale, and his lips were cracked.

Cameron stepped back and pressed the elevator button. The door opened.

Greg walked into the elevator. He put his left hand out to rest against the wall, propping himself up as Cameron pressed the button for the Diagnostics floor.

"Clinical depression," Doctor House said at last. His voice was rusty, as if he hadn't spoken in a while. "Incredibly contagious. Every time I'm around one of them I get blue."

"It's not clinical depression."

"Great, you got it all figured out. You don't need me. I have two more days off."

"Three ER doctors, two neurologists and a radiologist have all figured out what it's not, we need to figure out what it _is_."

"Well maybe if above mentioned doctors were interested in my opinion, they would have asked for it."

"None of them are willing to subject themselves to you."

"No pain, no gain." Greg grinned at her, unpleasantly. The elevator doors opened again, and Greg walked out: Cameron handed him the file, open to the most interesting section. He took it in his left hand, still open: his right hand was massaging his thigh.

"The blood work showed no signs of inflammation, and no one can figure out what's actually the cause of - "

"Huh," Doctor House interrupted her, an abrupt, familiar noise.

"What?"

"Husband described her as being unusually irritable recently.

"And?"

"I didn't know it was possible for a woman to be 'unusually' irritable." He handed the file back to her and began to walk down the hall to Diagnostics, slowly: Cameron kept up easily.

"Nice try, but you re a misanthrope, not a misogynist."

"What's the first thing you ask a doctor who's referring a patient?

"Are you questioning my ability to take a history?" Cameron was startled and annoyed: her skill at getting patients to talk was something Doctor House had given her backhanded compliments about in the past. She sighed. "What's the primary - "

"Not 'what?'. 'Why?'"

"Diseases don t have motives."

"No, but doctors do. Why this patient, what interests you?"

Cameron kept her face steady as he looked at her: a pale-eyed, assessing glare that had been intimidating when she first started working for him. Sometimes it still was. Yes, she had been looking out for an interesting case to greet him on his return to work: but this case _was_ interesting.

"Give me the chart," Doctor House said at last.

"Why?"

"I find your interest interesting."

--------

Greg came back to Diagnostics after five days, but annoyingly, his team had located a case for him in his absence. He didn't have clinic duty for two days, but that only meant Wilson couldn't accidently make contact on his way downstairs.

One of the recently-hired nurses in the paediatrics oncology ward was coming to work late. She'd been reported for it twice: the second time, her supervisor told Wilson, she had simply burst into tears when asked why.

Wilson told Julie - there was no point stirring up unnecessary trouble - that he would be taking the nurse out to lunch, almost certainly to fire her, if it turned out that she was having too much emotional difficulty to continue.

On the way past the Diagnostics office, Wilson glanced in, routinely, and saw Greg alone, for the first time in nearly a week. He was standing, leaning on the table, reading through a stack of notes.

Wilson pushed the door open, and went in. "Hey."

Doctor House looked up, looked startled, and stared. "Doctor Wilson?"

"Interesting case?"

Doctor House shrugged. He was looking Wilson over with real attention. "Why are you wearing that tie?"

Wilson stepped back. "What?"

"Last three months, same five ties. Thursday should be that paisley thing."

Wilson stared down. Julie had helpfully picked out his outfit: it wasn't different enough to comment on, he'd thought. He smiled. Greg was paying attention. He was acting like Doctor House, but he was paying attention like Greg.

"My wife picked it out."

Doctor House snorted: disbelief in a sharp grunt. "You want to look pretty. At work." His voice went into a teasing singsong: "Doctor Wilson's got a girlfriend...."

That was over the line. And it was startling. "Stop! Stop. I don t."

"So what's her name? Where does she work?"

"There's nobody." Wilson was amused. Over the line, but Greg was so interested it was pleasing. "Give it up."

"Your lips say no, your shoes say yes."

"Well," Wilson glanced down at his shoes, another pair Julie had picked out, "they're French. You can't trust a word they say."

"Solid, yet stylish." Doctor House was grinning. His back was still covered in ninety welts from hospital discipline, he was standing because even with his lame leg it probably hurt less than sitting down, and Wilson had last seen him this close when he was being dragged away by security guards, but he was grinning. "A professional woman would be impressed. I'm thinking accountant, actuary, maybe. It's somebody in the hospital. Patient? No, chemo's not sexy. Daughter of the patient? She would certainly have the neediness you need."

"What?" Suddenly that wasn't funny any more. Wilson should have put him in his place the moment he crossed the line. "I'm not going date a patient's _daughter_."

"Very ethical," Doctor House said. "Of course, most married men would say they don t date at all."

"There is no date!" Wilson glanced at his watch. He was still pleased by Greg's attention, but he was going to be late if he didn't leave now. "Shut up. I'm going to lunch with one of the nurses. It's her first time in an oncology unit and she's having a tough time, emotionally.

"Perfect," Doctor House said. He still looked amused, but he shut up: Wilson stood there for thirty seconds longer to be clear that Greg needed to be silent, and went on his way.

He did have to fire the nurse, and that wasn't good: and his afternoon was full of patients, but he overheard Foreman and Chase arguing on their way to the Diagnostics patient, and found Doctor House still alone, staring at a whiteboard full of symptoms and arrows and lines.

"You're treating her for African sleeping sickness because you don't think it's possible for someone to be faithful in a relationship?" Wilson asked.

Doctor House was leaning on the doorway into his cubbyhole. He looked more tired than at lunchtime. "And you do?"

"Yes."

"And you need to tell me that?" Doctor House gave him another look, up and down, without the active interest of this morning.

"I'm not having an affair." If he got Greg as he wanted him, he still wouldn't be having an affair. Perhaps that proved Doctor House's point. "I had lunch."

The same look, up and down. Greg, unmistakably, not House. "You moved the computer monitor," he said.

"What?"

Greg shrugged. "You're interested. You want something. The obvious thing to want from me is..." he parted his lips, made an obscene, brief, sucking sound. "I can do that. I figured all along that's what you wanted. But if you're searching my room..."

"Just once," Wilson said. He was too startled to point out that Greg had no right to privacy or personal possessions: Greg knew it.

"I believe you. What I don't believe is that it'll be just once." Greg looked exhausted. "Whatever. I'm going to lie down. If you're going to come in and do whatever you want to me, I'm..." he shrugged. "Available."

Wilson summoned the best defense he could think of: "I love my wife!" It was even true, right now: he felt more affection for Julie than he did for this pale-eyed insolent slave.

Greg snorted and laughed, at the same time. "Right." He went in: the door closed, slowly, and left Wilson standing alone in the Diagnostics office.

_TBC_


	8. 18 Poison

_*This is a very short chapter. Sorry, I'm feeling quite ill today. Paging Doctor House! ("It's a cold! Go home!") Oh yes, this is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee...*_

_(Update: I added a couple of thousand words to it after I got better - sorry for the long delay. It did occur to me that this chapter was way TOO short.)_

**1.08 Poison**

Foreman had assumed all their cases would be assigned by the Dean of Medicine, given that "Doctor House" had zero authority outside the Diagnostics department: but Cameron had found and brought a case to Diagnostics just by hanging out in ER. Chase hadn't, but Foreman was getting the impression that Chase was lazy.

Foreman didn't bother hanging out in ER. He picked out the three smartest nurses who worked there, told them the kind of thing he was looking for, and gave them his pager number. The first four calls were all resolvable by Foreman himself, using the "think zebras" principle: damn, he was thinking he could write a paper just on that, but better wait till he was done with this fellowship and heading up a Diagnostics department of his own. The nurses were appreciative - Foreman saved them time and made them look smart in front of the doctors - and the fifth call was gold. Foreman got the file, glanced at the patient and his mom - they'd already been admitted, Foreman wanted them up on the Diagnostics floor - and looked at his watch: on Doctor House's usual schedule, he ought to be heading back from the shower after morning clinic duty.

Except not. Foreman caught him coming out of the Diagnostics office, backpack over one shoulder, cane in hand: he looked irritated, as if someone had delayed him, but the office was empty.

"The kid was just taking his AP calculus exam when all of a sudden he got nauseous and disoriented," Foreman said. Start with the good stuff.

"That's the way calculus presents," Doctor House said. He walked on. Foreman went after him.

"Severe bradycardia. Heart rates down to 48 and falling fast."

Doctor House stopped. Foreman fastfooted by him and pushed the file at him. Cameron had done this, and it had worked. But Doctor House ignored the file.

"You know the kid?"

"No."

Doctor House's face twisted into lascivious inquiry. "Mom real good looking?"

That was annoying. "I didn't notice," Foreman said formally.

"Then it's a mystery," Doctor House singsonged. "Not why he's sick, but why you care so much. The gift shop's open, buy him a card."

"He's not responding to atropine," Foreman brought out the trump. That was what had got him intrigued enough to ask about the tox screen.

"Boys love fart jokes," Doctor House said. "Find him one with a good fart joke." He glanced up the hall. "I have an appointment I can't miss in five, and I don't need you along. He's a teenager." He started walking again. "It's drugs. Tell those ER geniuses to give him charcoal and naloxone so you'll stop following me."

The bathroom with the attached showers, where Foreman had assumed House was headed, was ten feet behind them. House kept moving.

"His tox screen was negative," Foreman said, answering the question House should have asked. "He's still whacked out."

House stopped by the pharmacy window, touched the bell, glared at Foreman, who was standing five feet off: he didn't care for addressing a slave as Doctor House in front of staff who didn't have to.

The pharmacy assistant who came to the window looked him over. "Greg. You're late."

"By less than a minute." Was that Greg protesting, or Doctor House?

"You're late. I don't have to give you anything if you're late. Go talk to Doctor Cuddy if you want it."

Greg put his hand out. His demeanor changed: Foreman averted his eyes. "Okay," Greg said. "I'm sorry. Please. I got held up by Doctor Wilson and Doctor Foreman. I tried to get here on time."

Foreman wished he could avert his ears. When he glanced again, the pharmacy assistant was looking directly at him, holding a plastic cup that had a dose of a toxic green liquid in it. He gave the cup to Greg, who knocked it back as if it were a shotglass.

"Thank you," Greg said.

"Don't be late."

Greg turned away and walked back up the corridor. He didn't look at Foreman, but he said "You don't care about the kid. You just find his illness 'intriguing'."

*Are you on methadone?* Foreman didn't ask. Chase would know, if Cameron didn't. "His CAT scan was clean. There's no sign of infection, and it's not diabetes." It was a genuine diagnostics puzzle, and Foreman wanted it.

"And you don't care about him." That was Doctor House talking, not Greg.

"That s what you want to hear," Foreman said, wondering if methadone was the cause of the personality changes. "Not in the slightest."

"Me neither," House said, and opened the bathroom door. "Go away. Find Chase and Cameron. I'll be there in ten. Means we'll be objective."

-------

"Is House on methadone?" Foreman asked.

Cameron went on looking through the kid's closet. "This room is way too clean for a teenage boy."

"Is he?"

"He's our boss," Cameron said. She kept her voice even and level. "I don't need to know."

"I bet he is. It'd explain why he thinks I'm a druggie."

Cameron finished with the closet - no sign of any stash - and headed for the kitchen. They'd been given permission to search the public rooms and the kid's bedroom: but then what kid in his right mind would hide his stash in his mom's room when she was paranoid enough to test him herself?

Foreman had finished checking under and around the kid's bed. He followed her, still talking. "Same reason he thinks this kid overdosed. When you're a drug addict, you want to think everyone else is, too."

"He's not addicted, he has to take drugs," Cameron objected.

Foreman grinned. He didn't smile often: this wasn't a nice smile. It was a triumphant grin. "You knew about the methadone."

"I don't know it's methadone," Cameron said. She'd never asked what was behind the regular trips to the dispensary. "He doesn't have permission to use a cane for nothing. Whatever he's on, it's prescription."

Foreman's triumphant grin hadn't faded. It reminded Cameron suddenly, unpleasantly, of House's problem-solved look.

"He has to take drugs," Cameron said, again.

"The definition of addict."

"He has to be in pain - " If it was methadone, too, it had to be pretty horrific pain. But then, by definition, if it wasn't disabling pain a slave wouldn't be allowed painkillers. Cameron worked hard not thinking about House's legal status: she didn't like it.

"And addicted to painkillers. What a coincidence."

The only thing either of them found that could be toxic was a jar of homemade tomato sauce that evidently hadn't been sterilized thoroughly - the lid was puffed up. The jar was dated the previous year, and there was an open jar from the same batch in the fridge. They called in their findings and took the jar in to the lab where Diagnostics had space.

"I can't believe we have to do this ourselves," Foreman said.

"Part of House's process," Cameron shrugged. "He likes everything done hands on."

The lab they used was on the same floor as the Diagnostics offices, but a considerable walk away: Cameron hadn't been sure if House would show. If he did, it was either that he was interested or contemptuous: and Cameron wondered how Foreman would take either one.

Other fellows had been and gone before Cameron, but only one between her being hired and Foreman: a radiologist who'd seemed pretty good but who could not deal with the situation. Cameron had simply decided that everywhere and anywhere, Doctor House was Doctor House, even if technically when they saw him other than in diagnostics, he was just another of the hospital slaves.

That had worked till last week. There was nothing technical about Doctor House getting hauled out of the room by two security guards even taller than he was, on his way to ... what Cameron didn't even want to think about.

"I am extremely disappointed," Doctor House said, without other greeting. Cameron both startled and relaxed: Doctor House, eyes gleaming, voice like a razor, was not a pitiable spectacle. "I send you out for exciting new designer drugs and you come back with tomato sauce."

Foreman sounded like he had decided to be very patient. "Matt decided to make himself a homemade pizza for a bedtime snack."

"Source of botulism," Cameron justified, "as well as a million other toxins that cause gastroenteritis, cardiac symptoms, and mental confusion." Besides, they hadn't found anything else.

Doctor House picked up the jar from where it stood at Foreman's elbow and grinned at it. Definitely at the jar, not at either of them. "I'm not sure about gastroenteritis but mental confusion? Bring it on!" He dug a couple of fingers into the sauce - Foreman, within arms reach, didn't move, and Cameron was too startled - and scooped at least a tablespoonful into his mouth. "Delicious!"

"Do you have a death wish?" Cameron snapped, jolted. She took a step away from the lab bench, towards House.

House turned that grin on Foreman. "I notice _he_ didn't try to save me."

Foreman leaned back against the bench, "I figured you were trying to make some kind of subtle point."

"I was," House said. "Kid just started seizing. Not a symptom of food-born toxins."

Foreman sounded smug. "Also not a symptom of drug use either. Not two hours after admission."

"So what would make him seize... in addition to all his other delightful symptoms?" House asked.

The answer was fairly obvious. "Pesticide poisoning," Cameron said.

"Carbonates?" Foreman asked.

"Or organophosphates. Organochlorines." House sounded like he was reading from a menu.

"Inhalation or absorption?" Cameron asked, wondering if there was a way to tell right now.

"Too soon to tell," Foreman said.

"We should wash him down," Cameron offered, practically. "The poison could still be on his skin."

"Already told the nurses," House said, and left, taking the jar of tomato sauce with him.

"He knew when he came in here that it was pesticides," Foreman said. "Why couldn't he just tell us?"

"That's not how he does things," Cameron said.

-------

Before his parents divorced, they had owned seventeen slaves and Stephen. Chase had been twelve before he realized Stephen was also a slave. Of course Stephen spoke politely and respectfully to Dad and Mum: he was nicely respectful to Chase, too, but not in a silly way like the slaves. Like the other slaves. Chase had never seen anyone give Stephen an order, even, until the year he was twelve.

Doctor House wasn't exactly like Stephen in any respect, except for one thing: he was a slave doing a job he loved and was good at, and it made him less like a slave than Foreman liked. Cameron seemed to be dealing with it by pretending to herself that House wasn't a slave. How she dealt with it when House was taken away right in front of her to be whipped, Chase didn't know: queen of denial probably managed it. Chase figured you had to grow up with a situation like this to be comfortable with it.

They couldn't afford to give the kid another wrong dose. "Now what?"

House's voice got different when he was thinking this hard. "What about Matt's clothes? They new?"

"They're ruddy old jeans, I think." Ripped and faded, they weren't anything Chase would have been allowed to wear to school. "They've been bagged up and taken downstairs."

They took the elevator to the basement. House didn't even seem to notice that Chase was standing between him and the doors: House didn't like elevators because they were a trap, but when he wanted to get somewhere in a hurry, he didn't care. Chase got the impression that if he hadn't been there to go with House as some measure of protection. House would have got into the elevator alone.

The bagged clothes were down by the furnace. When patients had to be stripped and their clothes destroyed, it was usually because they were lousy from being homeless and on their way to a sales center. House didn't seem to care about the smell: he asked Chase for the brand name - which Chase remembered after a minute's thought - and rummaged through the bags.

"Davis," House said finally, holding up a pair of ratty old jeans.

"Yes, they're Matt's," Chase confirmed. "And they're old."

House turned the jeans round and held them out towards Chase. "And yet the label isn't faded in the slightest. Fake old. 100 dollars for the homeless look."

"Chi's are a different brand," Chase said. "How could they both be contaminated?"

"That is a question for the ages," House said. "In the meantime get these tests in."

Cameron was off dealing with Matt's mother. Foreman tested Chi's jeans and Chase tested Matt's.

"Phosmet," Foreman said.

Chase grinned. "Doctor House was right," he said, just to taunt Foreman.

Doctor Wilson was in the Diagnostics office when they came back: he had the office next door, and shared a balcony with House. The balcony was House's only way of getting outdoors by himself: he wasn't allowed out even on hospital grounds without an escort. Wilson had taken him out to the cafe area a couple of times: Chase wondered if he could get Foreman and Cameron to lay a bet that Wilson was planning a sexual takeover of Doctor House. That would annoy quite a few of the people who liked to catch House alone in an elevator, if suddenly he had a sexual-exclusivity tag on him. Apparently he'd had one before, for a few years, but the hospital employee had left.

They were talking, and from all Chase could see through the glass wall, companionably: House looked as if he was still mostly thinking about the case, but Wilson didn't seem to mind.

House looked away from Doctor Wilson as soon as Foreman pushed through the door.

"Judging by the self importance of your strut, you have identified the chemical in question."

Wilson looked down at his coffee cup, and smiled; Chase caught it. Wilson _liked_ this outspokenness. Most of the other doctors on staff couldn't stand it.

"Phosmet," Foreman said.

"Hit him with the hydrolase."

They had already gone to the ward. Foreman broke the bad news. "Chi's parents said yes but - "

"Mighty mom said no." House had actually met her, Chase remembered: she'd yelled at him. House's voice sounded like he should be wearing a shit-eating grin, but his face was still thoughtful. "She s going to feel like million bucks when Chi lives and her son dies. Send Cameron. She's the only one who s managed to talk her into anything."

"Not this time," Chase said. Foreman couldn't be the only one who gave House bad news. "Matt s mom won t do anything until she gets that opinion from the CDC."

Doctor Wilson didn't look up: he just said, to his coffee cup, "Godot would be faster..."

"I'll go," House said. He wasn't wearing his roll-neck sweater: Chase saw him realise this as he went through the door. "Chase, you're with me."

"What are you going to do?" Chase said. The dark metal collar stood out against House's neck - it was meant to. It wasn't even very well concealed under a roll-neck, except that most patients weren't looking for it: it was a measure of the woman's upset that she hadn't complained about it.

"Can you do an American accent?" House asked.

"Foreman and Cameron can do one better," Chase said.

"They might have scruples," House said. "And she might recognise their voice, even on the phone."

"You don't think I'd have scruples?"

"Relax," House said. "I'm the only one who's going to get his ass whipped for this if Cuddy finds out, and we both know you don't give a damn."

Chase shrugged. "You want to get a sweater?"

"We don't have time," House said, and went into the ward.

Chase could hear the yelling from outside. Matt's mom had kept her voice down telling off Foreman, Cameron, and Chase: but the moment she saw the collar, Chase had a fair idea of what her reaction would be to the idea a slave had been trying to override her right to make decisions about her son's care.

"What is this?" Matt's mom yelled, and close enough to the door that Chase realized she was about to try summoning hospital security. They probably wouldn't remove "Doctor House" from a ward in the middle of a case without authorization from Cuddy... but she might give it.

Chase pressed the call button on his cellphone. She answered within half a ring, and her voice still sounded breathless. "Hello?"

Chase put on his best American accent: he'd never been able to do anything but Deep South. "May I speak with Mrs Margo Davis?"

"Yes, this is Margo Davis."

Chase hit every point House had asked him to make, and Matt's mom - just for once - listened without yelling. She protested a few times, but House had evidently already softened her up. "Yes, I understand." She hung up.

Chase leaned against the wall and waited. House came out. "The CDC is unable to give an opinion at this time, and... we re gonna have a doctor in your area next week," he said.

House gave him a look. "You fooled her with that?"

"She was upset," Chase shrugged. "He's going to be all right now?"

"I think he'll live."

"Foreman wants to know if you're on methadone," Chase asked. House actually looked about as relaxed as he ever did, walking down the hall with a solved case behind him.

House gave him a look. "Interesting that you phrase it like that."

"Hey, why should I care?"

House shrugged. He was heading to the dispensary window, Chase realised.

"Okay," Chase said. "I don't care. I'm just curious."

"Remind me," House said, "is it cats or wombats that's dangerous for?"

Chase let him go. Granted House was as likely to react like that whether it was true or false, just to screw with Chase's head: he didn't actually need to ask House to find out what Greg's prescriptions were. Nor did Doctor Foreman, if he thought about it. The bet would have to be placed before it occurred to Foreman just to look.

_TBC_


	9. 19 DNR

_Sorry for the long gap! I wasn't well. Hope this new chapter makes up for it. This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.09 DNR**

Wilson set down the latte and the chocolate-chip cookie at Greg's elbow, and sat down across the table with his own coffee. He waited. Greg was sitting with his arms folded across his chest, his hands gripping at his elbows. Some days he talked about whatever case his team were currently working on. On those days, he usually, absently, drank the coffee and often ate the cookie. Some days he sat like this, glaring across the table at Wilson, and ignored both coffee and cookie until Wilson had left.

"Saw Foreman at the whiteboard this morning," Wilson said. He drank his coffee. It had struck him as unusual: Doctor House used the whiteboard to think out loud, and while sometimes one of the fellows would add an item or a line, he had never seen one of them standing at the board while Doctor House sat. "Does he have a case?"

"Ask Foreman," Greg said.

"I'm asking you."

"Ask Cuddy."

Wilson made a little gesture with his coffee cup. "I'm asking you."

"Case of lobar pneumonia. Diagnostically boring. Foreman did his residency with Marty Hamilton, out in California, he's the primary physician. Guy can't walk for two years and nobody knows why."

"Doctor Hamilton?" Wilson put polite inquiry into his voice.

"John Henry Giles."

Greg said the name as if he knew it: or as if he expected Wilson to know it. "Friend of yours?" Wilson checked.

Greg paused. His face had gone blank. After a perceptible gap, he said "I'm hospital equipment. He's a musician. Jazz trumpet."

"You play?"

"Did you find a piano when you searched my room?"

Wilson sipped his coffee. He looked across the table. There was a sharp edge to Greg's voice. Wilson didn't say anything. Greg's chin lifted. His hands gripped tighter on his elbows.

"Did you play?" Wilson asked again.

"What are you doing here?" Greg asked.

"Coffee break," Wilson said. He pointed at the cup Greg hadn't touched. "I found your ipod, too. You like music."

"Who doesn't?"

"What did you play?" Wilson asked.

Greg was silent.

"You might as well drink the coffee," Wilson said. He glanced at his watch. Five minutes down, ten to go. He would count it a win if he got Greg to quit the white-knuckled grip on his own elbows. Greg hadn't been relaxed around Wilson since then: but it wasn't as if he could stop Wilson from spending his coffee breaks in the Diagnostics office, and eventually he would calm down again. "What do you think caused his paralysis?"

"Foreman and Hamilton say it's ALS."

"What do you think?

"It's Foreman's case," Greg said.

The door opened behind Wilson: Foreman said abruptly, "He signed a DNR."

Greg let go of his elbows and leaned forward. Wilson was annoyed. He'd had nothing to do with that. "You tell him it might not be ALS?"

"No," Foreman said. He walked round the table. He didn't comment on Wilson's presence. Wilson saw him glance at the untouched coffee cup and cookie.

"Well, no wonder he signed," Doctor House said. "Who wouldn't?"

"I started him on IV steroids and ancinthroid."

"Great. If it was my case, I'd be adding a little IVIG to the mix."

Foreman paused, glancing at Wilson, then at House. "For his pneumonia?"

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."

"He doesn't want anything done. No treatment." Foreman sounded unsure of himself. He looked at Wilson again, and Wilson drank his coffee: he realized Foreman didn't want him here.

"DNR means 'do not resuscitate', not 'do not treat'", Doctor House said. "You do nothing, it doesn t matter which one of us is right." He picked up the coffee cup, flipped off the cap, and drank, without taking his eyes off Foreman. "And hang on to that DNR. That signature could be worth a lot of money real soon."

Foreman left. Greg looked down at the coffee, and across the table at Wilson.

Wilson smiled. "Try the cookie. Double chocolate chip."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Doctor House was doing clinic duty: Cameron didn't expect him to answer the page, but he walked in ten minutes later. He was still wearing the roll-top that hid his collar, and when he spoke, it was crisply and directly, like a department head to fellows.

Foreman's interruption was a jolt. "The IVIG put him into respiratory failure."

"You put him on the IVIG?" Doctor House sounded interested.

"We did this," Foreman said.

"So undo it!" Doctor House glanced round. "Chase!"

"It's too late," Foreman snapped. "We killed him."

"Nobody killed him!" House sounded genuinely angry: he didn't even seem to hear Foreman's tone of voice. "He's not dead! Chase, intubate him!"

He didn't look at Cameron. Cameron had to wonder, much later, if that was an accident.

"He's DNR," Chase said. He didn't move.

House looked down at the man on the bed, glanced up at the three of them, and shoved his cane at Chase. He started to intubate the patient.

This time, the tone of Foreman's voice was clear. "What are you doing? You can't do this!"

"Bag," House said, ignoring Foreman.

"You can't do this!" Foreman said again. He looked as if every impulse pushed him both forward to stop a slave assaulting a patient, and backward to stop himself from assaulting his department head. Cameron stared at the security button on the wall - if she called security she would be fired but if she let House do this what would Cuddy do -

"Bag!" House yelled again, but he grabbed the bag to push air into the patient's lungs himself, balancing somehow on the edge of the bed and his one good leg.

A woman walked in - the patient's next of kin. House looked up. He was still ventilating the patient. He said, in a voice that sounded completely calm, "He had a bad reaction to some medicine we gave him."

"What did you just do?" the woman asked.

Cameron stopped looking at the security button, and said, as Chase seemed speechless, and Foreman was gearing up to yell, "He saved his life."

About half an hour later, when the patient was stable on a ventilator and oxygenating well, House said "The IVIG made him worse, which means multifocal motoneuropathy was a bad diagnosis. Okay, what s really wrong with him?" He had retrieved his cane from Chase, and was standing leaning on it.

Foreman swung round. His voice went up. "What's wrong with you?"

"Everyone knows what's wrong with me," Doctor House said. He was standing like Greg, Cameron realized - still talking like their department head, but standing like a man who expects to be knocked down. "What's wrong with him is much more interesting."

"You tubed him and he didn't want to be tubed!" Foreman looked like he might knock Greg down, but so far he was just yelling. "He has a legal paper saying just that."

"To intubate or not to intubate, that is the big ethical question," Greg said. He lifted his chin and looked at Foreman with wide pale eyes. "Actually, I was hoping we could avoid it, maybe just practice some medicine."

"There's _no_ question. It's the patient s decision - "

Greg interrupted. " - if the patient is competent to make it." He smiled a little. "If his thyroid numbers aren t making him sad."

"You don t believe that," Foreman snarled. "My God - "

His thyroid levels were a little elevated. Cameron said so, and Foreman interrupted her.

"Do _not_ defend him. It was nothing."

"Why did he sign that DNR?" Greg asked.

"I didn't talk him into it," Foreman said.

"No, he signed the DNR because he didn t want a slow and painful death from ALS. What was happening to him had nothing to do with his ALS." He sounded like Doctor House, though he was still standing as if he were trying to brace himself against an oncoming blow.

"Right! Exactly!" Foreman was shouting again. "It's the IVIG, you screwed up! You re not going to let him die because you screwed up!"

House's hands gripped the curve of his cane more tightly. "Technically, your case. You screwed up." He met Foreman's eyes. "Is that what this is about? Looking bad in front of your old boss?"

"You assaulted that man." Foreman's hand came out, but only to point, not to hit: Cameron let out a breath.

"Fine. I'll never do it again." House still had his eyes fixed on Foreman's face.

"Yes, you will." Foreman turned away.

"All the more reason this debate is pointless," House said. The door closed behind Foreman. "His lungs are worse. Any theories?"

Cameron was heading for the door. If Foreman was going for security, someone should tell Doctor Cuddy. House caught her eye. "Oh, I'm sure he just went to the little boys room. Come on, people."

Cameron looked at Chase, who glanced back at her with a little shrug. Legally, if the next of kin had noticed the collar, or if Foreman told her about it, Greg could get hauled out of here and beaten without any further warrant - Not a controlled judicial whipping, but the kind of beating that left a slave maimed or dead.

"Shouldn't we go back to the diagnostics office?"

"First place Cuddy'll look," House said.

Chase swallowed and quite plainly said the first thing he could think of: "Uh, vasculitis?"

"Wouldn t likely hit both lungs."

"It could be Wegener's granulomatosis," Cameron offered.

One of the hospital legal staff walked in. She handed Cameron and Chase each a paper. Cameron looked down at hers.

"Birthday card?" House said.

"There are case reports of Wegener's hitting both the legs and the spine," Chase said. He had glanced at his: Cameron supposed it was the same as hers.

The woman stood there. Cameron said "We've got to get you out of here, Greg."

"Well, it s not great," House said, speaking over her, to Chase, "but it's better than ALS. At least it's treatable."

"We've had formal written orders," Cameron said. "We're to get you out of here, and not let you come within 50 feet of John Henry Giles..." She moved closer. She couldn't possibly forcibly move Greg against his will. "Please. Doctor House. The orders point out that it's open to the DA to file criminal charges for battery."

Somewhat to her surprise, House moved, awkwardly, towards the door. Chase followed. House said "Cameron, test the blood for C-anke."

They were out of the room in the corridor: House didn't stop. He was at least heading back towards Diagnostics.

"These are serious charges," Cameron said. A slave could be killed for assaulting a free person. The hospital would take steps to prevent that, but "They aren t going to let us take blood for you to make more tests."

"He has blood left in the lab," House said. "Just add on the c-anke. Chase, Foreman's still got you doing bronchioscopic suctioning for the pneumonia?"

"Every four hours."

"Well, while you're down in his lungs, grab a biopsy. We ll need it to confirm Wegener's."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson came into the Diagnostics office and put the latte and a pastry down at Greg's elbow. He walked round the table to sit down with his own coffee.

"I hear you were having some legal trouble yesterday."

"What, no cookie?"

"You didn't eat your cookie yesterday. Thought you might like a danish."

Greg had his arms folded across his chest, but the desperate elbow-grip was gone. Wilson took the ipod out of his pocket and put it on the table in front of him. He expected Greg would crack and ask, but he planned to leave it there anyway. The door opened behind him: Greg stood up.

"Uh, I'm Doctor House - "

Wilson turned without getting up: the man looked like a visiting consultant. He was smiling. "Greg, right? I'm Marty Hamilton, John Henry's doctor. We should talk." He glanced at Wilson. "I'd appreciate any list of medications, anything like that."

"I've started him on Cytoxan," Greg said.

"For Wegener's, right? Look, Greg. I checked you out, you know?" Hamilton smiled. His voice was very gentle and very polite. "I know you're a good doctor. You have to appreciate that I'm a good doctor, too."

Greg lifted his chin. "Why?"

Hamilton's tone of voice did not change. "Wegener's is one of the first things I looked for. The biopsy and the blood tests were negative, just like yours."

"There's an error rate, Doctor Hamilton."

"And there s a time to let go. Look, I m going to take him off the ventilator, and John Henry's going to die. He's accepted that."

The door opened again: Foreman came in. He smiled. "Doctor Hamilton. Hey!"

Greg sat down again. He picked up the coffee and looked at it and put it down again: Hamilton and Foreman were changing greetings with every sign of friendship and liking. Greg picked up the pastry and bit into it.

"Listen, Doctor Hamilton, I'm sorry," Foreman said.

Wilson was watching. Greg's mouth was full, but his eyebrows went up.

Foreman sounded genuinely contrite. "I should have never put your patient on IVIG."

"It's not your fault, Eric," Hamilton said.

Greg had chased the pastry mouthful with a gulp of coffee. He said "No, it's mine."

Both Foreman and Hamilton paused to look at him. Foreman looked as if he were about to agree with Greg, but Hamilton said "That's not what I said." He turned to Foreman. "Everyone asks about you back in L.A."

"How's the old place doing?" Foreman asked, looking pleased.

Greg finished eating the pastry. "Oh, this is wonderful," he said, out loud. "You're here to pull the plug."

"I'm an old friend of John Henry's, as well as his physician," Hamilton said. He sounded caring. "Greg, I know you must be concerned about the assault charges: I want to tell you that everyone's agreed they should be dropped. You did what you did out of concern for the patient, but it's at an end."

Greg leaned forward. He was looking directly at Foreman, Wilson realised. "If it s Wegener's, his lungs won't be able to handle it. As soon as they pull that plug he'll die."

Foreman and Hamilton turned away. Greg's gaze dropped to the table.

"That's why they call it pulling the plug," Wilson said. Greg looked up at him. The door closed behind Foreman and Hamilton, and Wilson pushed the ipod across the table to Greg. It didn't seem the moment to make him ask.

"I got you everything I could download from iTunes."

"What?"

"John Henry Giles," Wilson said.

Greg looked down at the ipod without reaching for it. He looked back up at Wilson. "Walk me down there," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"He's my patient," Greg said. "Walk me down there. Please."

"We can't go in," Wilson said.

Greg was leaning on his cane, looking through the glass window. He didn't answer. Foreman, Hamilton, and a woman Wilson didn't know, were waiting by the bed.

"I'm gonna miss you," the woman said, her words unmistakable. She bent and kissed the patient on the cheek. Hamilton turned to the ventilator and switched it off.

The man kept breathing. Wilson watched, expecting every moment the monitors to flatline.

Foreman pulled out his stethoscope. "He's still breathing!" he said, and Wilson glanced sideways and saw House going through the doors into the ICU. Wilson followed him.

"His 0-2 stats are holding," Hamilton said.

"He's holding his own," Foreman said.

"He's still breathing," Wilson said, astonished. He had seen this time come so often, for so many patients, and the monitors should have flatlined by now.

"It's not Wegener's," House said. "Wrong again."

The woman who had kissed Giles, and Giles himself, were staring at House. Foreman and Hamilton were checking him over. Wilson glanced sideways and realized he had forgotten to tell Greg to wear something to hide the collar.

"He's stable," Hamilton said.

"Why are you still alive?" House said. He was looking right at Giles.

"Do you think he's just being stubborn?" Wilson asked. He wanted to get Greg back upstairs before either Giles or his next of kin or Hamilton decided to cause trouble.

"He's alive because you were wrong," Foreman said. HE still sounde angry. Wilson hadn't even had him on the list of trouble-makers. "It's not Wegener's."

"Yeah," House said. "I seem to be doing that a lot, lately. People keep living because of my mistakes."

"His arm's paralyzed," Hamilton interrupted. He looked down at Giles. "I'm sorry, John Henry. We knew this would happen eventually. ALS is progressive."

"Assuming this is a progression of his paralysis," House said.

Giles spoke. He hadn't taken his eyes off House. "I can't move my arm," he said. His voice sounded rough and gravelly, more than a ventilator would account for.

"Yes, you arm is paralyzed," House said, to Giles, and then, to Foreman and Hamilton, "Yes, his legs are paralyzed. Why is everyone so gung-ho to connect those two conditions? You could think I m wrong, but that's no reason to stop thinking."

"How about this one?" Foreman stepped forward. He looked furious, and his glare was as much for Wilson as for Greg. "He's not your patient."

"Nope, not good enough," House said.

"He could have suffered a stroke when he was intubated," Wilson said.

Suddenly, everyone in the room was looking at Wilson. Wilson shrugged. "Well, blood clots are common in intubated patients. The inactivity causes - "

"Not interested in why," House snapped. "Let's get an MR-angiogram for an embolic stroke."

"He doesn t want you treating him!" Foreman shouted. He took two steps forward, his arm out, as if he was going to shove Greg backward.

"Wait," Giles said, and seemed to gather his breath. He spoke to House. "You know I didn't want to be saved."

"That's what s interesting," House said. He stepped round Foreman, and was standing by the bed, as close as Hamilton. "Your thyroid was low, but not low enough to cause depression."

"So, you gonna tell me that even if I can't walk I can still hear the birds sing? Enjoy the rainbow, and feeling the sun shine on my face?"

House was leaning on his cane. As Wilson watched, his head tilted forward, and his voice lost the crisp authority. Greg was talking, not Doctor House. "Those things are fun." He paused. Giles was still looking at him. Greg swallowed. His voice was uneven. "Okay, life sucks. Your life sucks more than most. It's not as bad as some, which is depressing all by itself. But do me a favor. Just let me find out what's wrong with you. Please."

"I lost my air," Giles said. He sounded like he expected Greg to understand. "I had a session the other night, with a bunch of kids, and that was a test to see if I could still play. I can't. I got one thing, same as you."

"And that's all you are?"

"Yeah," Giles said. "Same as you. You coulda got killed over what you did to me. You coulda got sold. You risked your life and your place here just to save somebody who doesn t want to be saved. That's obsession. You don't do that unless you got something, anything, one thing. We're not normal. Normal people don't got that one thing that hits them that hard and that true. I got music, you got this. The thing you think about all the time, the thing that keeps you south of normal. Yeah, makes us great, makes us the best. All we miss out on is everything else. We're the same."

Greg didn't move. He was leaning over Giles, and Wilson couldn't see his face.

"But when it's over, it's over," Giles said.

"Yeah," Greg said, almost inaudibly, and then he straightened up. He hooked his cane over the end of the bed. Ignoring Hamilton and Foreman, he began to undo the other equipment fastened into Giles.

"What are you doing?" Wilson asked, hearing Hamilton and Foreman ask the same question almost simultaneously.

"It's not over for me," Doctor House said. He looked round, checking the various connectors were gone, and started pushing the bed. "Either you re going to call the cops again, or we're doing this." He looked down at Giles. "If you want to die, you can do it just as easily inside an MRI machine."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson put the latte and the pastry at Greg's elbow: he grinned, privately, as he saw Greg open the cup. He sat down on the othr side of the table, and heard the door open behind him.

"We're discharging John Henry Giles today," Doctor Cuddy said. She looked at Wilson.

"Coffee break," Wilson said.

"I thought oncology had its own lounge," Cuddy said.

"Company's better here," Wilson said.

"Greg," Cuddy said. "Mr Giles requested an interview with you before he left the hospital."

"So he can charge me with assault again?" Greg bit into the pastry.

The woman opened the door for him, but John Henry Giles walked into the Diagnostics office unaided except for a hospital issue cane. Greg got up. He put the pastry down.

Giles was holding a trumpet under his arm. "I got my agent to ask what you would cost."

"What?" Greg's face went blank. "You wanted your own personal physician?"

"No. Figured it would be a thank-offering. But I can't afford you. So I wanted you to have this." Giles held out the trumpet.

Greg stared at it. Giles went on holding it out. It was old and battered.

"I'm giving to it you in front of witnesses: I'm not giving it to the hospital. I'm not giving it to Diagnostics. I'm giving it to you personally, with the permission and consent of your owner. You can keep it, sell it, it's yours." He paused. "Just don't try to play it."

Greg took the trumpet. He looked down at it, in his hand, and back up at Giles.

"Thanks for sticking with the case."

"I can't do anything else."

"I know," Giles said, and nodded, and turned away, gathering Cuddy and the woman with him. He didn't look back. Cuddy did, a moment after, but Greg had already sat down again. The trumpet was on the table in front of him. He folded his arms over his chest, and gripped at his elbows. His face was blank.

Wilson decided to leave him alone.

_*TBC*_


	10. 110 Histories

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.10 Histories**

"Got a case that might interest you," Doctor Wilson said.

Foreman had his ER nurses to find him cases that could be interesting, but they hadn't come up with anything in the last two days. And he didn't like Wilson.

"Doctor House" was in the clinic, doing his morning shift. Cameron was doing Doctor House's paperwork. Chase was doing the crossword. Foreman was heading for Neurology, and Wilson was persistent.

"Homeless. Admitted 24 hours ago with a suspected drug overdose. Her tox screen s clean, but she's still delusional."

Foreman shrugged. Homeless meant she'd been admitted via ER, which meant none of his nurses had thought her case unusual: and if she was homeless, that probably meant she was crazy, had no money, and wanted a warm bed and a hot meal.

"Homeless," Foreman said dismissively, "usually means crazy; no money. Cuddy's not going to like this - "

Wilson interrupted him. "We're a teaching hospital." He went on "No ID. Doesn't even seem to know her name. I got called in because of some lesions on her arm."

Skin cancer. Homeless meant no insurance and likely no Medicaid. No proper treatment. Lethal. "Homeless always means no roof, at least, there's too much sun."

"The lesions were non-cancerous," Wilson said, "but I noticed a twitch. Her wrist."

Like or dislike Wilson, Foreman liked it that Wilson had brought this case to him rather than to Chase or Cameron. "I'll see her."

She wasn't interesting. At all. She faked nerve damage and then a seizure: and she was almost certainly diabetic.

Wilson appeared offended: "Fake low blood sugar. Now that's acting."

"The blood sugar was real. But she s probably diabetic. OD'd on her own insulin." That made sense. Foreman meant to check to see if she was carrying insulin, but she'd vomited in her own bag before she was admitted, and the stench was more than Foreman wanted to deal with. He didn't care anyway: this was a horse, not a zebra.

"What about the twitch?" Wilson asked. He evidently didn't regard Foreman's opinion, which was damn annoying.

"Her arm moved."

"Why fake a twitch? In case the seizure was too subtle? A twitch could indicate a tumor, which could indicate "

Foreman interrupted him. He was right, Wilson was wrong, and Wilson wasn't his head of department. "A need to see a neurologist, which is why you called me. Keep an eye on her until two pm, watch her blood sugar, give her a nice hot lunch, and discharge her." That would give her 48 hours indoors, and what more could a homeless person want? If she wanted a permanent home, she could walk down to the slave market and find some dealer to clean her up and take her on: if she had any skills, that would outweigh her need for insulin. Foreman walked away.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson waited on the stair by the Diagnostics floor when Greg should be leaving the clinic. Greg climbed the stairs slowly and steadily, planting his cane, pulling himself up. He stopped at each floor and caught his breath for a minute: on the floor below Diagnostics, he stopped for five. Wilson waited. After five, impatiently, he started down the stairs.

Greg was by the door on to the hall, his hand pushing it open, his head turned back to the stair: he saw Wilson coming down and froze.

"Hey," Wilson said.

Greg turned away from the door and began to climb the stairs. "What do you want?" he asked.

"Got a case." Wilson ran through the symptoms again.

"Talk to Foreman," Greg said. He reached the Diagnostics floor.

"He's wrong."

Greg started heading towards the washroom with the showers. He glanced sideways at Wilson. For a moment, he sounded like Doctor House: "Foreman is wrong? The neurologist is wrong, about a neurological problem?"

"He took _one look_ at her and figured it was a scam."

"So, you figure he's not being objective?"

"The woman had a twitch. She had a seizure."

"Both of which Foreman saw?"

Wilson could still see that dismssive look as Foreman turned away. "He just wanted her out the door!" That came out a bit more emphatically than he'd meant. He was standing right in front of Greg, who had frozen again, both hands planted on his cane, looking as if he was bracing himself against a blow.

Wilson sighed, frustrated. "I - just - want her to get some _medical attention_." He held out the file.

Greg stood there, staring at him. So strangely, like a mask dissolving, the submissive, frightened look was vanishing: the pale blank eyes were sharpening into a look of intense, almost impersonal curiosity.

After a moment, Doctor House took one hand off his cane and reached for the file. "That s not even close to being true. Something else. Something personal. Okay. Next time you want a consult, don't wait for me on the stairs where I can't see you. I can't tell you have nice hair and a winning personality from one floor down."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Of course any department head had a right to refer a patient to Diagnostics. But Foreman had heard Doctor House, from the safety of the Diagnostics glass box where he was allowed to say anything he damned well liked, turn away patients who were far more diagnostically interesting than a homeless woman scamming a free bed and a hot meal. Wilson had asked, and got, the full attention of the Diagnostics team: and Doctor House had told Foreman - in front of Cameron and Chase - that the main reason he was making them work on her was Foreman didn't want her as a patient.

She was still faking seizures, panic attacks, and she'd bitten Foreman. House had said she had to have an MRI, and by all that was fair, Foreman should have got away with postponing a rich-bitch patient's non-emergency post-surgical check-up.

Foreman had been in Doctor Cuddy's office before, twice. Once for his job interview, in which the lame doctor with the roll-top sweater had asked, if he'd thought about it, far too few questions for a department head filling a fellowship: and once for his post-job interview, where it was explained to him that the lame doctor was actually, legally, diagnostic equipment, the property of the hospital, and if Foreman accepted the fellowship, he'd be studying diagnostics under a slave.

He sat down. Greg remained standing, leaning on his cane. Foreman glanced him over, and remembered what Chase had said: we can call him 'Greg' outside Diagnostics, but I prefer to run away.

He still didn't like Chase, but he saw what Chase meant, right now.

The door opened and Cuddy came in, saying brusquely without other greeting "You tried to steal someone else s test?"

"Doctor Terharg is a plastic surgeon," Foreman said. "The woman was getting a six-month checkup on a chin implant."

Cuddy sat down behind her desk, and stared at Greg. She sounded exasperated and disappointed. "I can't believe you authorized this."

"Really?" Greg lifted his chin and settled his grip on his cane. "Sounds exactly like something I'd do."

Foreman looked away, suddenly remembering that cane landing with a clatter on the table in front of him. That thin high whining noise as the two security guards jerked Greg off his feet.

"She can't have an MRI," Doctor Cuddy said. "The CT scan shows she has a surgical pin in her arm, the MRI magnet would have ripped it out of her body. You like the Alien movies? You had no medical history, what were you thinking?"

"We'll surgically remove the pin, then do the MRI, does that sound good?" Doctor House inquired.

"She has an electrolyte imbalance," Cuddy said.

"Doctor Foreman, a neurologist, believes this woman has a brain tumor," Doctor House said.

Foreman still thought the seizures were faked. He supposed he ought to admit that. "Actually, I - "

Doctor House interrupted, with a cold look. "Hey, don't ever apologize for a medical opinion." He looked at Doctor Cuddy. "If he's right, we don't do this test, the patient dies. Now I realize that you have a specialty of your own, but does yours have anything to do with the brain?" He nodded at Foreman. "His does."

"Fine," Doctor Cuddy said. "But nothing more until you find out who she is."

"How are we supposed to "

"Hey!" Doctor House looked amused. "He knows more homeless people than any of us. Go check out the hood, dawg."

"Fine," Doctor Cuddy said, dismissing him. "Greg, stay here."

"Just a minute," Foreman said. Cuddy looked at him. She didn't look pleased. Foreman glanced away and thought of leaving. A thin high whine and a clatter of a falling cane and seven days of doing Greg's clinic duty. "Doctor House authorized her MRI. He didn't know I was taking Doctor Terharg's patient's test. I'm very sorry."

"You can go, Doctor Foreman," Cuddy said. She still didn't look pleased. Greg's expression was blank and - as Foreman had expected - pretty much solidly ungrateful.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson wasn't pleased. He didn't want _Foreman_ playing good guy.

"Surgical pin. Better than a wallet. Serial numbers in case of recall, tied to a patient s name," Greg said.

"You risked a whipping to find out who she was?"

"Hey, it worked," Greg said. "If we have her medical records, we can treat her. She was in a car accident two years ago, she's Victoria Matsen, and I got seven hospitals in the tri-state area where she's been treated under that name. Anyway Foreman saved my sorry ass. Your turn, you going to tell me why this case?"

"She's my new girlfriend, I m having a tattoo designed, I was hoping you could find out her name."

"So she's just another sick person the kindly Doctor Wilson has made sure doesn t get lost in the big ugly system."

"Yes, I forgot, I need a reason to give a crap."

"You're giving two craps."

"The metric system always confuses me. Are those her medical records?" Greg had two folders on the table in front of him: he pushed one at Wilson. It was a PPTH employee medical file for Eric Foreman.

"Foreman s parents, happily married, 40 years."

"Mazel Tov," Wilson said, surprised, picking it up. He flipped through it. "Why are you looking at this?"

"Keinahora. So, why does Foreman hate homeless people? If it's an uncle or a grandparent you'd think he'd use it in his college application essay. Family struggles beats a 4.0 GPA any day. Maybe he s just a snob."

"Why do you care if he hates homeless people?" Wilson asked, curious. He leaned over the table: Greg's hand was over the name on the other file. "What s the other one?"

Greg looked up. His eyes were wide and pale. "There were two interesting things about this case. One of them was how much Foreman didn't want me to take it. The other was how much you did." He moved his hand. He was looking at Wilson's own employee medical file.

Wilson slammed his hand down on it. Greg's chair scooted back an inch. His eyes didn't flinch from Wilson's.

"How the _hell_ did you get hold of this?"

"I can access any employee medical file, if I claim a diagnostic need," Greg said.

"You had no diagnostic need to see my medical file!"

Greg shrugged. "And you can tell Cuddy that, and I'll get thirty for using my file access privileges to spy on you."

"I should," Wilson said flatly. "You are way over the line."

"Yes," Greg agreed. He didn't take his eyes from Wilson's face. "Both parents living and still married to each other, one brother, one sister, two previous marriages, one current marriage, no children. What right do I have to know that much about you?"

Wilson saw, with clarity, two things happening.

He could pick up his and Doctor Foreman's medical files, slap Greg's face, and go tell Doctor Cuddy that her hospital equipment was overrunning his parameters, with these files as proof.

He could walk out, slam the door, and go find "Jane Doe" - Victoria Matsen - and check that she was still being taken care of: leave Greg to return the files without being found out. He probably could.

Greg had sulked for days after Wilson had searched his room. How long would he sulk if Wilson turned him in to Cuddy?

Too long.

Wilson turned around, leaving both files lying on the table, and walked out. He would check that Matsen's medical records had arrived.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Matsen died.

Greg had found the diagnosis: Wilson couldn't fault him for that. Probably even by the time Matsen had been brought in, even if Greg had known on sight that she had rabies, it would have been too late.

The body went to the morgue: she was Wilson's patient, but he could not face the job of locating and informing the next of kin tonight.

The Diagnostics office was empty: Foreman had been admitted for treatment, Chase and Cameron had gone home. Wilson walked through and entered Greg's room. It was empty: Greg was downstairs in the clinic, doing his evening shift.

Wilson sat down in the comfortable chair and waited, leash in hand.

He nearly fell asleep, sitting there: when the door opened, casting light into face, he sat up, almost surprised. Greg was standing in the doorway, watching him.

"You told me not to wait on the stairs."

Greg nodded. "That's right, I did." He didn't move further into the room. He must already have showered and changed: he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, slave work clothes. His voice was even. "I suppose it would be pointless to ask you - what do you want?"

"That's right, it would," Wilson said, and stood up. "Matsen died. I want to talk to you."

"Uh huh," Greg said. He still didn't move.

"Come on," Wilson said. As he passed Greg, he clipped the leash to the ring fixed at the back of his collar, and put his hand in the small of Greg's back, so the leash went from the collar to Wilson's hand, not tugging at Greg's neck: "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" Greg said. He tried to stop in the doorway of his office, but Wilson wouldn't let him. "We can have this conversation anywhere."

Wilson laughed. He kept Greg moving. He didn't tug at the leash, but Greg knew it was there. "No we can't. You'll understand."

"I guess," Greg said. He could move quite quickly, for a cripple. He kept up.

Wilson knew which exit they should use: he had used it more often before he was promoted to head of Oncology, with a larger office and access to a balcony and this odd interest in this strange slave.

They were standing outside the hospital and Greg turned to look at him and his face was blank. His eyes were colorless in the dim light. "Where are we going?"

"I'll tell you when we get there." It was necessary to tug at Greg's leash a couple of times, as he hung back, but he really had nowhere to go but with Wilson: he was outside the hospital, and while Wilson would get into trouble if he lost him, Greg was smart enough to know he would be in worse trouble if he ran. Anyway, Wilson wasn't the fittest guy in the world, but he could certainly outrun Greg. Wilson had worked all this out earlier. Right now, walking down the narrow rainy streets to the cafe where he had sat when he decided to accept the job offer at PPTH, he was trying to think how to say it. He didn't say it, ever, because everyone who already knew didn't talk about it and he shouldn't talk to anyone who didn't know.

The cafe was closed. The street was dark. The street light had burned out. Far down the block there was the yellow glow of one open diner. Wilson stopped, where he always stopped, and sat down, tugging to make Greg sit down next to him.

He realised, when he put his hand on Greg's shoulder, that Greg had his arms wrapped round himself and was shivering violently.

"You're cold," Wilson said. He shrugged his coat off and wrapped it round Greg's shoulders. "Is that better?"

Greg moved his jaw twice before he answered. "Yes. No. I'm sorry." He was still shaking.

"We'll get some coffee before we go back." Wilson waited, his free hand against Greg's collarbone, keeping a grip on the leash. Gradually Greg's violent tremors slowed.

"Are we here?" Greg said. "Is this where you talk to me?"

"Yes," Wilson said. He stared at Greg. "I have two brothers."

There was silence. After a long minute, Greg said, sounding more confused than before, "Your family history says you have an older brother and an older sister."

"I have two brothers," Wilson said. "But one of them - he's not in my life any more. He has schizophrenia."

Greg said nothing.

Wilson drew in his breath. "This was the last place I saw him, nine years ago. I don't even know if he's alive."

_*TBC*_


	11. 111 Detox

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.11 Detox**

The third item down on the agenda of the February board meeting was "Diagnostics maintenance". This was Wilson's fourth board meeting since he became head of Oncology, and so far, items about Diagnostics - aside from the formal approval of filling the third fellowship place - had come up under the reports from the ethics committee, under disciplinary procedures, and quite frequently under AOB.

"We last discussed this in September: as we were looking to fill a third fellowship in Diagnostics, we agreed to postpone discussion for six months." Doctor Moore, the head of the rehab unit, spoke quickly. "At that time there was room in the budget for two weeks. Are there any current cases with Diagnostics that merit a delay?" He glanced down the table.

"Delay for what?" Wilson asked.

"Detoxing from methadone," Doctor Moore said. "We discussed this quite extensively six months ago."

"My first board meeting was October," Wilson said amiably. He didn't lose any points reminding the other board members that he was the youngest department head.

"The Diagnostics slave has now been on methadone for 24 months, which has proved satisfactory in keeping him pain free and functional. Prior to that, he was on an experimental regime of muscle relaxants and NSAIDs for six months, with occasional use of morphine for breakthrough pain. Prior to that he was on Vicodin for eighteen months, which proved less than satisfactory. We agreed when he went on methadone that this would be a temporary measure. I have several plans for further experimental regimes once he has detoxed from methadone. You are welcome to review the clinical plans, Doctor Wilson."

"I do have some expertise in pain management," Wilson said, still mildly. "What's the goal here?"

"To keep the Diagnostics slave alive and functional for as long as we can economically maintain the hospital investment," Doctor Moore said, sounding mildly surprised: _What else?_

"Given my observations of him," Wilson said, dryly, "I would imagine your chief problem is getting him to cooperate with your new clinical plans. He seems quite cooperative with the methadone regime."

"Were you aware he was on methadone?"

"No, not directly," Wilson said. "But I was aware he visits the dispensary on the fourth floor on a daily basis, and that he's quite stringent about keeping that appointment."

"Interesting as this is," Doctor Simpson said, "we have a full agenda this morning. Can we leave the details of Greg's treatment to the maintenance committee?"

Doctor Cuddy had been eyeing Wilson with a grave look, but she said "Diagnostics has one case, the son of a donor. One way or another, it should be wrapped up in a week. Doctor Moore, if you set a date for admitting the Diagnostics slave to rehab, the budget is two weeks with extension to three if medically required. I'll inform security. I must remind all Board members that the Diagnostics slave must not be allowed to know he is scheduled for detox, as on past history if he does know he'll attempt to evade it. Doctor Wilson."

"Yes?"

"Are you volunteering to be included in the Diagnostics maintenance committee?"

Wilson looked down the table at Cuddy, and glanced at Moore.

"We meet daily during a regime change," Doctor Moore said. "It will involve quite a time committment over the next month. Once we have the Diagnostics slave stable on a new regime, of course, that commitment tapers off."

Cuddy looked back at Wilson, almost warningly. Wilson shrugged. "Of course: I'd be fascinated. Thank you for including me."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The boy had internal bleeding. One of the Diagnostic fellows had started an ANA test for lupus: it was negative. Wilson looked at the boy's stats. What Cuddy had meant by "one way or another" was simply that either Diagnostics would figure out what was wrong, and begin treatment if there was treatment, or the boy would die.

Wilson picked up the results and headed back to his own office: all three of the fellows were in the Diagnostics box, and Doctor House was at the whiteboard.

Wilson opened the door and walked in, just as Foreman was saying "It's a retinal clot in the left eye."

"Coumadin would dissolve the clot, fix his eyesight," Cameron suggested.

"You can't use bloodthinners," Chase said, "he's got internal bleeding. Fix the eye, you kill everything else."

"Surgery's out for the same reason," Foreman said.

"We have two hours to figure this out," Chase said. "Either we restore the blood flow or he loses the eye."

"Forget the eye," Doctor House said. He was looking at Wilson, but talking to the kids. "Tell him to use the other one to look on the bright side. The clot tells us something. It could help us figure out what he has, which could mean he gets to live."

There was a silence. Chase was looking at Doctor House with curiosity. Cameron looked sorry for him, and Foreman looked disgusted.

"Differential diagnosis, people," Doctor House said with furious energy. "How does internal bleeding suddenly start clotting?"

"It makes no sense," Chase said. "They're opposing processes."

"It can happen in lupus," Cameron said. "Increased platelet count can cause blood clots."

Wilson cleared his throat. "ANA was negative. It's not lupus."

All three of the fellows looked round: they didn't seem to have noticed him entering.

"This is true," Doctor House said. "But why are you the one saying it? What are you doing here? I thought we ruled out cancer."

Wilson smiled, briefly. He hadn't thought to bring a latte and a pastry. "I was lonely." He sat down at the table. He needed to ask Greg some questions, but they could wait.

There was a pause. Cameron looked at Wilson, and at House. She still looked very sorry. "What's going on?"

Chase smiled, seeming genuinely amused: Foreman looked even more disgusted.

"That's why you re here?" Greg said. He was frowning. He looked back at his three fellows. "If it's not lupus, what else?"

"Most likely candidate for throwing a clot is infection or cancer," Chase offered.

"Checked the biopsy twice," Wilson told them again, "it's not cancer." House had brought the biopsy to him this morning before the board meeting.

"It s not an infection," Foreman said. "Gallium scan didn t reveal anything."

"Okay, what hides from a gallium scan?" House asked. He was still staring at Wilson. "Hey. Wasn't there a board meeting this morning?"

Wilson reached for the newspaper, folded open to the crossword. It was half-completed. Wilson found a pen and filled in **cohibit**.

"Cardiac," Chase said.

"Right," Cameron agreed. "Clot slips off, travels through the artery, and gets backed up in the eye."

"Chase, how long have you worked here?"

"What?" Chase reacted with real astonishment. He stared at House, then at Wilson. "Uh..."

"Simple enough question," House said. "How long have you worked here?"

"Almost two years," Chase said. "But - the clot - "

"Not 'almost' two years," House said savagely. "Two years _exactly_. February two years ago." He looked from Wilson to Cameron to Chase to Foreman - Wilson could see his gaze travelling. "I'm sorry, I wasn t paying attention. What happened?"

"It's an infection," Foreman said. "In his heart?"

"Great," Doctor House said. "Echocardiogram for the heart and IV antibiotics for the infection, stat."

All three fellows got up and left: all of them looking at Wilson. Doctor House was still standing by the white board, half-leaning on it, watching them go. As soon as the door closed behind Cameron, he asked "Why are you here?"

"Why don't we take a walk to the dispensary? You've got an appointment there in ten minutes."

House didn't move. He was eyeing Wilson warily. "Got a leash?"

"Do you want one?" Wilson shook his head. "That was an emergency."

"Then I'd rather not take a walk with you," Doctor House said.

Wilson shrugged. "If you miss your appointment, it's not as if you get a do-over, is it? Come on. What are you scared of me finding out?"

"Nothing," Greg said, after a moment. He didn't sound submissive. He left the whiteboard and walked towards the door: Wilson stood up. They were face to face. Greg said, expressionlessly, "Because you already know, don't you? I'm on methadone."

"Yes," Wilson admitted. "Why?"

Greg made a face. "It's yummy." He was gone, past Wilson and down the corridor, towards the dispensary. Wilson stood in the doorway and wondered about catching up with him.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The first committee meeting of Diagnostics Maintenance was anti-climactic: Doctor Moore handed Wilson three thick ftolders of notes on past and possible future programs, and introduced him to the other two doctors: one of Moore's fellows, a Doctor Taylor, and a silent Doctor Lopez from Psychology.

After an hour's reading, Wilson rang Julie. "I'm going to be late at work."

"How late?"

"New case," Wilson said. "I'm not sure. Don't wait up."

There was a pause. "Okay," Julie said, and put the phone down.

Wilson was halfway through the last folder when he heard Greg coming along the corridor. Greg was walking more slowly. He stopped when Wilson opened the door.

"What do you want?"

"We should talk," Wilson said, and held the door open.

Greg stood in the hall. He swallowed. "And by 'talk' you mean...?"

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean have a conversation. Also, food."

Greg looked down at his feet. Without lifting his head, he came past Wilson, into his office, and stood still as Wilson closed and locked the door. Wilson pointed at the couch. "Sit down. What do you want on your pizza?"

Greg sat down. He was looking at Wilson: no, he was looking at the three folders on Wilson's desk. After a moment, he wrapped his hands round his cane and rested his forehead against it. "Mexicana. Extra cheese." His knuckles were white, Wilson saw: he came and sat down beside Greg.

"What will it take to make you believe I'm really not going to hurt you?"

"Heroin," Greg said.

He didn't sound as if he was joking, but he turned his head to one side and bared his teeth at Wilson in a parody of a smile. "I'm a methadone addict. You really think pizza's going to make me feel all nice and cosy about detox?" He waited, as if for an answer. "Or did you figure you could fuck me happy?"

"You alienate people," Wilson said thoughtfully.

"I've been alienating people since I was three." Greg looked away.

Wilson got up again and placed the order for two pizzas and two bottles of low-alcohol beer. He came back and sat down next to Greg again.

Greg unfolded himself and sat back against the couch, looking at Wilson. He said levelly "The methadone lets me do my job, and it takes away my pain. I function. I don't want to go through detox. I'm an addict. It's not a problem."

"I assume you're aware of the hazards of long-term methadone use. What's the problem with your leg?"

Greg was breathing hard. It was a moment before he could speak. "Debridement. Muscle and nerve damage. Five years ago." He swallowed. "I'm functional. I don't need to detox."

Wilson stood up. He looked down at Greg, who tilted his head to look back at him. "I'm_ functional_," he got out, and closed his mouth, and froze, eyes wide. After a moment, Wilson turned away. He guessed Greg expected to be handled - and that any touch would feed Greg's assumptions. Whatever this was, Wilson didn't intend to be relegated in Greg's mind to just another doctor who'd caught him in a situation he couldn't escape.

"**_Please._**"

Startled, Wilson turned back: the word had come out halfway between grunt and scream.

Carefully and slowly - the muscle damage must be worst in the right thigh - Greg shifted himself from the couch to the floor. He was shaking as if he was already in withdrawal. "Please," he said again. He put his hands flat on the floor beside him, and opened his mouth.

Wilson laughed. He couldn't help it. "Do you really think I'm going to decide you don't need to detox because of a blow-job?"

Greg looked as if someone had hit him: that blank, stunned expression had Wilson feeling guilty. Then, to Wilson's utter surprise, Greg laughed: not sycophantically or hysterically, but genuinely as if he thought it funny. "Hey. I give _great_ blow-jobs," he got out, mid-laugh. He stayed on the floor: Wilson thought about helping him back up onto the couch, and decided that could wait.

He dropped the three folders on the floor beside Greg, and sat down on the couch. "The thickest one is the record of your past pain maintenance programs. Then there's your current program and the plan for detoxing you. The other folder has a bunch of ideas for your next program."

Greg reached for them: for a moment, oddly, when he turned and looked up at Wilson, the first folder open on his sound knee, his face looked like Doctor House. But he spoke like Greg. "Thank you."

When the pizza arrived, Greg ate it one-handed, not stopping his perusal of the folders; after Wilson had finished eating, he shifted to sit behind Greg, where he could rub Greg's shoulders and occasionally run his hands through the fine brown hair. Distracted, Greg hardly seemed to notice the gentle handling, even when Wilson experimentally ran his fingers over the contrast of cool metal that embraced the warm tender flesh.

At midnight, Greg's head nodding over the pages he was re-reading, Wilson took the folders away from Greg - who barely, sleepily protested - and walked him through to the tiny room behind the Diagnostics box, to put him to bed.

Julie was already asleep, or at least pretending to be, when Wilson got home. He had stopped on the way to jerk off: the whole evening had been an erotic experience, all the more intense for not allowing his arousal any open expression.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson had planned to leave at five the next day: the maintenance committee met over lunch. Doctor Moore's fellow presented her pain maintenance plan (therapy, acupuncture, Tylenol). Wilson did not mention that yesterday evening he had given Doctor House all the information they had on the Diagnostics slave's pain protocols.

At five to five, there was a knock on the door: Greg was holding his left hand carefully. "My hand," he said. "Can you ... check it out for me?"

The late-shift radiology technician took an x-ray snap of Greg's hand from two careful angles, and left Wilson to collect them. Something hard and smooth had smashed into the hand: "I think it's broken," Wilson said. "What did you do?"

"Accidentally closed a door on it."

"No," Wilson said. "Door would have broken the skin."

Greg looked back at him.

"Who did this to you?"

"As an expert on pain management," Greg said dryly, "you're probably aware that the pain-relieving effects of methadone are shorter than the pharmacological half-life. A patient being dosed with methadone for pain control may require multiple doses per day. A patient who is receiving only one dose per day for chronic pain is likely to be experiencing some pain by the time of their daily dose, which will get substantially worse if the dose is missed."

"Really," Wilson said. He began taking out the materials to immobilize the broken bones: he would need to send Greg down to ER for a cast, but he could tape it up himself. ER would leave Greg till the end of the line, unless Wilson gave him a note to show the ER staff, and _that_ could itself cause trouble. "Did you miss your dose of methadone for today?"

Greg gave him a bland look. Wilson stared. This was not cooperation. This was a resistance he hadn't even considered. "The brain has a gating mechanism for pain," he said thoughtfully. "Registers the most severe injury and blocks out the others." He took hold of the hand to begin taping it, and asked, making his voice politely interested, "Did it work?"

"Well, my hand hurts like hell. Yeah, I feel much better."

"Huh," Wilson said, and tapped Greg's hand against the table. Greg's face twisted up: his breath came out in a grunt that was half a scream.

"Don't splint it," Greg said, breathlessly. "I want to be able to bang it against the wall myself if I need to administer another dose." He grinned at Wilson, showing his teeth, the same kind of grin with which he'd asked for heroin last night. "Just... tape it up."

The door opened and Doctor Cuddy came in like a buzz saw. "Why did you tell Cameron to lie to Mr. Foster?"

Wilson was taping Greg's hand: he felt Greg flinch, but all he said was "Make it tight, will you?"

"Answer me," Doctor Cuddy said.

Greg still sounded breathless. "Nothing I could say is going to change how you feel, and nothing could come out of your reaction that is going to change what I plan to do, so I prefer to say nothing."

"So," Cuddy said. "that was you just saying nothing."

Greg grinned at her. "Uh-huh."

"He's a major donor, and he is furious."

"And scared." Greg actually sounded like Doctor House now. Wilson had almost finished taping his hand.

"So, what did you think you were going to do? The father s insisting on the lupus treatment."

"Yeah, Cameron told me and I told her to tell him no."

"You can't just sit back and let the kid die."

Doctor House gave her a shit-eating grin. "Neither can the father."

Cuddy turned and looked directly at Wilson, before she looked back at House. "So that's your plan? You're going to play chicken with the kid s life?"

"Well, he's the dad. I should win easily."

"What did you do to your hand? And why did you miss your methadone appointment today?"

"Doctor Wilson delayed me with mindblowing sex," House said. He gave Wilson the same shit-eating grin. "And then he broke my hand."

Cuddy looked at Wilson again. This time, it was quite clear what she thought.

"We didn't have sex," Wilson said hastily. He had hopes his fast denial would shift her thoughts in that direction anyway. From her considering frown, it didn't work.

"I know that," Cuddy said, dryly. "Greg, I should end your involvement in this case right now."

"What, 'cause I lied to a patient?" Doctor House looked white and strained, but he sounded completely confident. "I take risks, sometimes patients die. But not taking risks causes more patients to die, so I guess my _biggest_ problem isn't the size of Doctor Wilson's unlubed dick, it's that I've been cursed with the ability to do the math."

Wilson was grateful beyond words that only Cuddy heard that - and she looked too angry to bring it up later. The door pushed open and Cameron came in without knocking. She said, abruptly, "I told him that you wouldn't treat him for the lupus until - "

"What did he say?" Doctor House interrupted.

"He said he wanted to transfer Keith to another hospital."

"He's not stable enough, he d never make it through the door!" Cuddy interrupted Cameron, who shrugged a protest.

"That's what I told him."

"And that's when he caved." Doctor House sounded richly triumphant.

"Yeah. He agreed to do it your way."

"Two plus two equals four," Doctor House said, and stood up to follow Cameron out. He was gone, leaving Cuddy and Wilson staring at each other.

"I did not have sex with him!" Wilson said, the one honest denial he could make.

"Right now I wish you _had_, instead of what you did do," Doctor Cuddy snapped. "You were warned not to tell him about the detox."

"He's a doctor!" Wilson snapped back. "He's a _brilliant_ doctor. Wouldn't it help to bring him into the decision process for his treatment?"

"He's a piece of hospital equipment," Cuddy said. "_Expensive_ hospital equipment. Which you are mishandling. Keith Foster has lupus or Hep-E, and Greg proposes to confirm the Hep-E diagnosis by giving him solumedrol."

Wilson stared. "But if he has lupus, that will destroy his liver?"

"Yes." Cuddy looked back at Wilson. "It's a terrible chance, and Keith has no other chance. Because now Greg _knows_ that as soon as the boy either dies or recovers, we are going to detox him."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The boy was on extreme life support waiting for a liver transplant. Lupus confirmed. Wilson went looking for Greg.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Greg looked up. He was sitting against the wall, not far from the operating rooms. "Thinking," he said.

Wilson moved to stand over him. He was just angry enough not to care. "I let you read your treatment notes."

"Yeah. Thanks. Big deal." Greg tipped his head back to lean against the wall. "I told you. I'm functional. I don't need to detox."

"Look. Right now, no one expects you to cooperate with detox. What's planned for the end of the week is a chemically-induced coma and a rapid detox using Naloxone. After that, Doctor Moore has several plans for pain management - "

"Yeah. Saw that." Greg stretched out his sound leg and spread his arms against the wall, his hands palm down on the floor. He was shaking, Wilson saw, as if from a distance.

"I'm addicted to methadone," Greg said, clearly, levelly. "For the past two years. I function well on it. It lets me do my job. Now Doctor Moore is going to send a couple of very big strong guys who are going to make sure I show up at his rehab clinic, and I'm going to detox from methadone. Detoxing is going to be a bitch, but after your committee's got all the opiates out of my system, I'm going to be in extreme, chronic pain. If your committee can figure out a pain management regime that lets me function, I get to keep my job. Otherwise, I'm not worth keeping." He tilted his head sideways, looking at Wilson. "So when you tell me you're really not going to hurt me and offer me pizza, I guess you're the kind of guy who wants to believe I'm going down on you voluntarily. Do you want me to act like I want you before or after the pizza?"

"Greg," Wilson said. He went down on his knees and leaned his hands on Greg's shoulders. "You have other options. Safer options. I'll advocate for you. We can begin by detoxing without drugs - "

"Are you crazy? I love drugs."

"We can put you on a slow detox - fasting, sauna, massage for the muscle cramps, plenty of liquids, vitamin and mineral supplements. Exercise to burn off fat, you know how it works - "

Doctor House stared back at him. His eyes were wider than Wilson had ever seen them. He interrupted, in a changed voice - "Methadone is stored in the fatty tissues of the body. The food here is crap. All the patients lose weight."

"I'll get you on a special diet before you go into rehab - "

Doctor House grabbed him. It was a functional grab: he simply wanted to stand up, and used Wilson as a support. He said out loud "We dismissed environmental causes from the beginning because Keith got worse in hospital. He got _worse_." He was on his feet: he looked round for his cane, grabbed it up, and staggered awkwardly and far too fast down the corridor.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Keith Foster is stable," Doctor Cuddy told the third meeting of Diagnostics Maintenance. "You can send security to collect Greg at your convenience." She glanced at Wilson. "It was acute naphthalene toxicity. Two of House's fellows found the termite nest all round the room he was sleeping in."

"Doctor House was right," Wilson said.

"That's what makes him useful."

"Have you considered _asking_ him to cooperate?" Wilson said.

"We've tried that," Cuddy said. "It doesn't work."

**_*TBC*_**


	12. 112 Sports Medicine

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.12 Sports Medicine**

Greg's morning clinic hours were normally over by noon. But well before noon, Foreman had heard rumors via the ER nurses that made Cuddy's statement "Doctor House is in rehab," pretty unsurprising. "Doctor Chase, as the senior fellow, you're responsible for any cases referred to diagnostics: consult as necessary. For any decisions that require a department head's sign-off, Doctor Wilson has agreed to be responsible." In the tone of voice that clearly hopes for the answer 'no', Cuddy asked "Any questions?"

"How long will Doctor House be in rehab?" Foreman asked.

"As long as required," Cuddy said. "Two or three weeks."

The ER nurse whose sister worked in rehab had said the budgeted time for Greg to be detoxed from methadone and shifted on to a new regimen was two weeks. Foreman offered, making his voice calm and flat, "Would it be useful experience if each of us took a week taking responsibility for cases referred?"

Chase looked at Foreman. His voice was curiously dry as he said "Fine with me."

"I think that's an excellent idea," Cameron chimed in.

"Fine," Cuddy said. "Doctor Chase, you take responsibility for week one, starting today: Doctor Cameron, you take responsibility for week two, and Doctor Foreman, if there's a week three, you take responsibility then. If any of you have any difficulties, please take them to Doctor Wilson in the first instance, then to myself. Clear?"

This time, everyone nodded. Foreman stifled his resentment and hoped for three full weeks and a few days over.

Doctor Wilson had been standing at Cuddy's elbow with a blue file under his arm: when she left, he set it on the table. "Broken arm. Osteopenia. His bones are too thin to fix the arm."

Chase reached for the file: Foreman got to it first. The name struck him as an odd coincidence, and it wasn't till he was flipping through the pages and looking at the patient history that he realised it must be "Hank Wiggen?"

Chase shrugged. He had gone to the whiteboard and picked up the marker. "Cancer?"

"MRI and PET scan are both negative," Wilson said.

"how old is he?" Cameron asked. "Could be the osteopenia is early onset."

"Hank Wiggen," Foreman repeated. "Born 1977."

"And that's significant because..." Chase asked. He had written OSTEOPENIA - BROKEN ARM at the top of the board.

Wilson and Foreman traded looks. "Hank Wiggen," Wilson repeated. "Best pitcher the Jackals ever had. The bone s too thin to support the kind of surgery that would let him pitch again. But if we figure out what s causing the osteopenia, we can reverse the bone damage, then do the surgery."

"And someone can finally beat the Yankees," Foreman said.

Chase shrugged. "Don't expect me to know - where I come from, rounders is for girls." He grinned.

Cameron was frowning. "Wasn't he investigated for using drugs?"

"Yes, but he's cleaned up," Wilson said.

"He says he's cleaned up," Chase said, marker poised. "So what was his designated high?"

Cameron reached for the file and flipped through it. "No tox screen. We should run a check."

"Page me if you need me," Wilson said, and left.

"None of the usual suspects!" Cameron said, raising her head from the folder. "Age isn t right, in apparent perfect health before this incident, MRI and PET scan negative for tumors. Test him again, it s got to be cancer.

"Chem 7 also shows a poor kidney function. Now why would a guy in his twenties have a poor kidney?" Foreman asked.

"Cancer," Cameron said. "It first attacks the bones, and then the kidneys."

"MRI and PET scan negative," Foreman repeated. "If he had bone cancer we'd see some evidence."

Cameron's voice rose suddenly, surprisingly. "You want it to be his kidneys, because if it's his kidneys, then maybe we can treat it, maybe we can fix it. And if it's cancer, then he ll never pitch again. If this were a regular guy who came in and broke his arm lifting a box, House would've packed him up and sent him home!"

Foreman looked at Chase. Neither of them said anything. Cameron looked back at them both.

"I'm upset about him too," Chase said suddenly, surprising Foreman. "But you won't change anything by yelling at us."

"Don't you _care?_" Cameron asked Foreman.

"I think we should discuss our patient," Foreman said. "He weighed 175 his rookie year."

"Stop," Cameron said.

"Now he s 195 after playing a year in... Japan. Why?"

"He let himself go," Cameron said, but Foreman could see the curiosity in her eyes.

"Steroids," Foreman said. "The guy was a drug user, I'm sure he wouldn t have balked at pumping up through chemicals."

"That would explain the weight gain," Chase agreed. He wrote STEROIDS up on the whiteboard, followed by a **?** "And the kidney problems."

"And the bone loss," Cameron said.

"We need to run a tox screen anyway," Chase said. "I'll go ask him what he s on and get a urine sample."

"I'll book another MRI and PET scan," Cameron said.

Foreman shrugged. "I'll set up the lab tests."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The rehab ward for slaves was long and wide, the beds with the waterproof stained mattresses spaced widely apart, each one with a set of four-point restraints and a belly-band. Doctor Moore and his fellow were waiting by the bed in the far corner: Wilson walked slowly down the ward. There were only three patients besides Greg: two of them were unconscious, the third, an older woman, was moaning quietly, her mouth open, her eyes glazed. Each patient had a nurse observing them: the ward supervisor sat at the far end.

It was the first time Wilson had seen Greg naked. He was waking from the coma: his eyes were twitching under his closed lids. The nurse observer was fastening him down, her hands brisk and impersonal as she cinched the bellyband and fastened the wrist restraints: Wilson was standing at his right leg. The scar on Greg's thigh drew his attention, and he bent to fasten the right ankle restraint, helpfully, and because it was somewhere else to look than the carved valley where a thigh muscle had been removed. He wanted to look at it: the deep helpless mark was doing something to his gut.

Greg's eyes blinked open. The nurse observer sat down in the chair beside the bed. Doctor Moore bent to peer into his face. "Greg, do you know where you are?"

Greg's mouth opened. He was whining with pain, tugging at the wrist restraints, his left leg trying to kick: he held his right leg still.

"Greg, it's Doctor Moore. Do you know where you are?"

"Hurts," Greg said. The word began and ended in a high thin whine.

"Do you understand where you are, Greg?"

"Hell," Greg said. He closed his eyes and turned his head away from Doctor Moore: Wilson saw tears leaking out from under the lids, and Greg swallowed and closed his mouth and tugged again at the wrist restraints. His back arched, but the belly band held him down.

"He's always like this," Doctor Moore said, to his fellow as much as to Wilson. "Until he's detoxed completely from the methadone, we won't be able to get him onto any drug regimen that requires even minimal cooperation. Hang a banana bag to keep his electrolytes balanced. Nurse, page me if there's any sign of respiratory distress."

Wilson hung back. The other three slaves had light sheets draped over them: Wilson looked at the nurse. "Cover him up," he said.

"I don't have any orders," she said.

"Fetch a sheet and cover him," Wilson said. "I'll stay here."

Greg was still tugging at the wrist restraints. He was swallowing and his head was twitching. He was crying, his breath coming in small huffy pants, disrupting the thin steady whine of pain. Wilson bent down and put his face close to Greg's. "You have to get through today," he said quietly. "Twenty-four hours, no respiratory distress, I'll get you on to oxycontin. I promise. Keep breathing." He lifted his head: the nurse was there with the sheet. Greg's eyes were open again, staring, twitching, as the sheet sank down over his body, covering the discomforting and enticing scar.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Doctor Wilson: a word?" Doctor Simpson was already inside his office.

"Sure, how can I help?" Wilson tucked away his pen.

"I was on the diagnostics maintenance committee the first time it met to consider Greg's case. I resigned from it three years ago. I think you might find it useful to know why."

Wilson nodded, looking helpful and interested. He wasn't at all sure he did want to know why.

"I was sorry for Greg's situation. I attempted to be kind to him. My husband and I celebrate our fortieth anniversary next month," Doctor Simpson said. "Obviously we've both had our passages. But three years ago, at a fundraiser in the hospital, Greg sat down beside my husband and started to tell him about the sexual relationship that I was supposedly having with him. With Greg. In - obscene detail. My husband walked away from Greg, but very nearly walked away from me permanently: Greg had been very convincing in his claims that I was making use of him, and my husband - quite understandably - found that distasteful in the extreme." He paused for a moment, and went on at length "I think you should know: Greg's motivation for telling my husband seemed to be nothing but a kind of poisoned revenge for my kindness. If you value your current marriage - I would leave Greg to Doctor Moore."

Doctor Simpson stood looking at Wilson for a while. Wilson looked back. He wasn't sure how much value he did place on his current marriage, but he knew how Julie would react to Greg telling her Wilson was screwing with him.

"I didn't expect Greg to be grateful," Doctor Simpson said. "I didn't think I expected anything from him, except to do his job and cooperate with a reasonable pain regimen. I didn't expect what I got: wanton, obscene cruelty, to someone who had done him no harm at all."

Julie would be amused and disgusted both. Amused because she did find it funny - or said she did - when people were caught screwing around with working slaves. Disgusted, because - Wilson remembered the deep scar with a complex inward shudder - it was disgusting, to have your husband fondling an aging, crippled slave.

"I don't intend to get involved with Greg," Wilson said. "It's too late to step back from the committee at this point, but I'll bear in mind what you've said."

He didn't intend to get_ involved_ with Greg. He didn't intend to let Julie find out anything about his interest in Diagnostics.

But he did want to see him again. To see him without the gasping shuddering pain distorting his face. To see a lot of him.

He didn't intend to let Julie find out.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Okay," Chase said: "Osteopenia, impaired liver function, impaired kidney function, his urine tests negative for steroids, and it's not cancer. So what's killing him?"

"Did you check his testicles?" Cameron asked.

Chase raised his eyebrows, looking amused. "No, should I?"

"Hypogonadism," Cameron said. "If he'd used steroids any time in the past five years, that could have damaged his kidneys."

"What about something environmental?" Foreman offered. "Arsenic, mercury, the symptoms could indicate - "

"His wife's fine, his coach is fine, the other players are fine, the camera crew doing the commercial are fine," Cameron said.

"We _should_ check his testicles," Chase said thoughtfully, amusing Foreman. He suppressed a grin.

"If he has hypogonadism, and we can throw out the kidneys, then everything else adds up. The bones, the impaired liver function, could be caused by a breakdown of his adrenal glands."

"Addison s disease," Foreman said. "For which the treatment is - "

"Steroids," all three of them said simultaneously, and grinned at each other.

"But if it's Addison's," Foreman said, recovering, "the treatment would cause him to retain fluid. With the kidneys almost shut down already, he'll die."

Chase shrugged. He was still grinning, but the grin faded as he wrote ADDISONS on the whiteboard, and added underneath SMALL BALLS?

"I'll check his testicles," Foreman said. This time he got a swift and unexpected grin from Cameron.

"I'll run the test for Addison's," Cameron said.

Chase sighed. "I'll tell him and his wife what we think the situation is."

"We don't _know_," Foreman said.

"We know if we don't do anything, he'll die," Chase said. "And we know that if we treat for Addison's, he'll die unless he can get a kidney transplant. And we know that he's not a good candidate for a new kidney, unless he can find a live donor. I'd want to know."

The test for Addisons was inconclusive, and Hank Wiggen's wife wanted to give him one of her kidneys if she was a match. The only conclusive evidence was Foreman's: Wiggen's testicles were tiny.

Either Wilson or Doctor Cuddy would have to approve the kidney transplant: Foreman knocked on Wilson's door and went in. He was sitting at his desk doing paperwork: he listened to Foreman's summary of the situation, and nodded when Foreman said the wife wanted to be a live kidney donor. "I'll talk to her when the results come back. It'll be hard for her whichever way it falls out." He looked down at his desk again, dismissing Foreman with a nod, but as Foreman reached the door, Wilson said, "Doctor House is doing fine."

"What?" Foreman turned, startled.

"I thought you and the others might like to know," Wilson said. "Doctor House is doing fine."

Foreman shut his mouth tightly. If Greg was detoxing from methadone, "fine" was meaningless. All Foreman hoped for was that he wouldn't be back at work any sooner than three weeks from today. They were doing fine without him.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson went home. He and Julie had dinner together. She told him about her day - three regular clients, one new one, a trip to the hairdressers for the oncology dinner on Friday night. Wilson told her about his day: the ward rounds, the Diagnostics maintenance committee, the new patient who was terminal, the temporary extra responsibility of the Diagnostics department.

Julie was always very sympathetic about the terminal patients, but she was irritated about the Diagnostics department. "It sounds like the kind of situation where you get set up to take the blame if anything goes wrong, and no credit if everything goes well."

"It's not quite that bad," Wilson said mildly. "All I'm responsible for is deciding if they need to take a decision to the Dean or if Doctor Chase can sign off on it. I will have a word with Lola Petrovian, though."

"Who's she?"

"Hank Wiggen's new wife."

"Oh." Julie made her sympathetic face. "Oh yes, I suppose you should. Poor woman. They were both drug addicts, weren't they?"

"They met in rehab, I gather," Wilson said. "I don't really know any more about it."

His pager went off when Julie was brewing coffee: the test results were back for Lola Petrovian. Wilson called to confirm she was still in the hospital. "I need to go."

"How long will you be?" Julie asked.

Wilson hesitated. Whatever the test results said, Wilson supposed he could get the explanation and comforting over with inside an hour: and he could get to the hospital at this time of night in a 20-minute drive. But if he were legitimately at the hospital, he could spend an hour with Greg in the rehab ward without Julie getting suspicious. "Oh, a couple of hours." He glanced at his watch. "I'll be back well before 11." It was quarter past eight.

"All right," Julie said, and kissed him: unexpectedly, quickly.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Hank Wiggens's wife was enough of a match to be a good kidney donor: she was also pregnant. No pregnant woman would be accepted as a live kidney donor.

Telling her that was grimly like a good news, bad news joke: Wilson found himself wishing he could share that with someone. Julie would be shocked. Most people would be shocked. It wasn't funny, but it was too grim not to be funny.

And it was over with pretty fast: she wanted to tell her husband. Wilson found Chase, handed him the test results, and told him that if Lola Petrovian hadn't changed her mind by tomorrow morning, Wilson would schedule the transplant with Doctor Cuddy, and Chase should schedule the abortion.

Chase nodded to all that. "Going home?" he asked.

"Yes," Wilson said.

"Just if you were going to look in at the rehab ward," Chase said, and hesitated. He shrugged finally. "Tell Doctor House... whatever works."

"What?"

"Look, I don't know," Chase said. He sounded exasperated. "I like the guy. We need him. But he's not the kind of guy you send get well soon cards or teddy bears to, is he? Tell him about the case. If I know him, the hypergonadism might give him a laugh."

There was a curtain round the older woman's bed: the other two patients both seemed to be asleep: at the far end, Greg lay with the sheet off him, the nurse observer standing at the end of his bed. To Wilson, it looked as if she had moved back to that position just as he walked in.

The other two patients were unattended. Wilson noticed that just as one of the attendants backed out from the curtained bed, his cock out and his hand moving on it, and almost bumped into Wilson.

Wilson pulled back the curtain. One of the other attendant was on top of the woman, moving up and down: the third was standing by the bed, looking away, tucking his cock back into his pants.

"Get off her," Wilson said abruptly. He was aware distantly that his long-conquered stutter had come back, that what he said was more like "G-g-g-get off-off h-h-her" but the man on top of the woman grunted and his buttocks jerked obscenely and he came.

The woman was still in four-point restraints. The attendant stood up, leaning on her, and looked at Wilson. He was sliding off the condom he had worn and knotting it.

"Who the hell are you?"

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" Wilson said. He was still stuttering.

"What did it look like?" The attendant was grinning. His voice sounded lazily satisfied. "Perks of the night shift, you know how it is. What else were you here for?"

"To check on one of my patients!"

"This her?" The attendent glanced down at her, for the first time seeming a little disturbed.

"No," Wilson said. He shook his head. "You are all suspended from duty. Right now. Get out of here."

"All the patients in this ward are supposed to be under twenty-four hour supervision," the attendant said. He sounded disbelieving. "You can't just suspend us - "

"That - " Wilson gestured, "was not twenty-four hour supervision. All three of you. Out."

"But - " The third attendant, the one who had nearly bumped into Wilson, still had his cock out. Unbelievably, it was still somewhat hard. "The other two - "

"Get out," Wilson said. "Put that away, no one wants to see it." He turned away and went up to the nurse supervisor's desk: the man who sat there met Wilson's eyes with extreme nervousness. "Yes, Doctor Wilson?"

"Get me three attendants to work the night shift here, Make sure they understand the difference between _supervision_ and _fucking the patients_, will you?" That came out with unexpected clarity, despite the stutter. Wilson stood still and watched as the supervisor's hands moved.

Cuddy had made clear she didn't regard staff making sexual use of the slaves as a disciplinary offense. Nor would Wilson, under ordinary circumstances, but these slaves were technically patients - and some of them could be patients from outside the hospital. And these attendants weren't offduty or on a break: they should be at work.

...and the supervisor should have stopped them. Wilson eyed him. Like the nurse who should have been watching Greg, and who Wilson now thought had probably been watching the action: he was culpable. Quite possibly, if he'd been taking bribes to keep quiet, more culpable than the attendants who'd taken part. That was Cuddy's business.

The woman was lying still, her head turned to one side. Her chart said she belonged to Castle Pharmaceuticals and was here to be detoxed from Vicodin. Wilson picked up the sheet from the floor and put it over her, and briefly checked her vitals: her pulse and breathing were elevated, but not to a dangerous degree, and when Wilson checked her chart, the stats had been within the expected norms last time they were taken.

Wilson checked the other two patients: one of them also belonged to Castle Pharmaceuticals, the third had only a surname listed as his owner. Someone's personal property. Greg was the only patient who was hospital property. That clarified the situation. Wilson walked down the ward to Greg's bed. The nurse was sitting next to it, her eyes studiously bent on the screens that displayed Greg's vital signs. Everything there looked normal.

Greg was silent: his eyes were wide open. He was tugging at his wrist restraints, but it seemed to be reflexive. He was staring at Wilson. His mouth was closed. His lips were chapped and dry. The skin around his eyes was red and puffy: he had been crying. Tears were still sliding from the edges of his eyes, glazing the tender skin. Wilson picked up the sheet again to put it over him, and stopped, staring down at Greg's body.

"Cracked ice," Wilson said. He looked up at the nurse. "His mouth's dry. He can have ice. Go get him some."

"Yes, Doctor," the nurse said professionally, and went.

Wilson looked down at Greg again. The bellyband was off, but then Greg wasn't really struggling any more. The stains on the mattress were old, but then Wilson had seen for himself that they used condoms. Wilson leaned closer, checking the fastenings on the ankle restraints. Greg stank of fear and pain.

"Did they ..." Wilson began, and realised he had no notion how to ask. What to ask. A slave wasn't able to judge if a free person's sexual use was unauthorized or inappropriate. That was common sense. He knew that.

Greg husked, almost soundlessly, "Can't say". His eyes flickered sideways. He tugged, again, at his wrist restraints, a feeble jerk. "Time?"

Three new attendants came in at the same time as the nurse came back with a cup of cracked ice. Wilson nodded. All four of them were looking nervously at Wilson.

Wilson glanced at his watch. "It's ten past ten."

He went back to his office, called Cuddy's office to leave a message on her voicemail, and spent over an hour composing an e-mail. He did not make reference to Greg at all, except to in passing to justify how he had stopped by the rehab ward. He had to keep within bounds: he had seen that three of the attendants - the three he had sent off duty - had been involved, and he could give reasonable justification for believing the supervisor should have stopped them. There was really nothing _more_ he could say.

He didn't get home till close to midnight. Julie was in bed, apparently asleep. They didn't talk.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"I fired the three men you saw making use of the Castle Pharmaceuticals slave when they were supposed to be working," Cuddy said. "The supervisor is getting a warning that goes on his permanent file. I will not authorize an investigation - the last thing I want is to find out officially how many other staff may have done something similar in the rehab ward. As it is, I'm going to have to apologize to Castle Pharmaceuticals, and probably agree that staff can go on one of their scuba-diving 'lecture' junkets. They won't care if their slaves got used, but I agree with you - when they're not hospital property, we can't have staff behaving as if they were."

Cuddy said all this as briskly and impersonally as an email. She was watching him.

"What were _you_ doing in the rehab ward in the night shift?"

"Checking on Greg."

"Did you have any reason to suppose he would need... 'checking on'?"

"He's detoxing from two years of methadone, and in extreme pain. And as it turned out, I can't be sure the nurse who had been assigned to watch him actually had her attention on _him_, not on the ... other activities."

"He is hospital property," Cuddy said. "The same issues don't apply to staff making use of him as they do to slaves who are in the rehab ward as, effectively, our patients. But if it were to turn out you had visited the rehab ward to make use of him, and in doing so you'd got three staff fired who were there to do something very similar ... well, it could dilute the message I intend to send by firing those three."

"I was checking up on him as my patient," Wilson said, with dignity. He could justify it, too: he hadn't actually laid hands on Greg last night. What he might have meant to do, if the situation he'd found hadn't put him off: well, no one had to know about that. Besides, he hadn't planned to have sex with him. Not while he was detoxing and in pain. But a scar removing that much muscle implied muscle cramps in the remaining thigh. Massage therapy was indicated.

It really was.

"Hank Wiggen's been diagnosed with Addison's," Wilson changed the subject. "Treatment will destroy his kidneys. His wife wants to be a live donor. I was here last night talking her options over with her."

Cuddy nodded. "Is she sure?"

"Very," Wilson said. "When the lab ran the tests, they also discovered she's pregnant."

The expression on Cuddy's face changed. "But then ... she can't be a donor."

"She wants to have an abortion," Wilson said.

"Oh. Are they sure it's Addison's?"

Wilson shrugged. "Apparently all the symptoms fit. The test was inconclusive, but that's usual with Addison's... they checked again for cancer. There's nothing. It's Addison's or it's something inexplicable."

"What are your thoughts about Greg's pain regimen?" Cuddy asked, changing the subject again.

"I thought oxycontin. One dose every 12 hours. Also, I want a PT specialist to examine his leg."

"Won't work - he won't cooperate."

"With the PT specialist?"

Cuddy half-laughed. "Not willingly, but we can fix that. We had him on Vicodin at one point. It was quite successful in managing his pain, but he's an addict - book-keeping found out he had two doctors writing scrips for him who were both unaware of the other. He was using it to get high. Doctor Simpson tried to get him into a counselling program, but that failed. We need something that he won't be able to abuse."

"I wasn't proposing we let him manage his own scrips," Wilson said. "Have him get one dose at the beginning of his morning clinic duty, and a second at the beginning of his evening clinic duty. I want to get him on oxycontin today while he's in rehab, so we can establish its effectiveness."

"Have you talked about this with Doctor Moore?"

"Moore thinks the extreme pain should taper off in a few days as his system gets used to doing without opiates."

Cuddy shrugged. "Get him on the while he's on it, give him all the Hank Wiggen case notes. See if he can come up with something his team haven't thought of _before_ Lola ends up having an abortion."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

On a regular basis, Greg would take the oxycontin orally. But for this initial experiment, Wilson injected it. And watched, feeling something he did not care to name, as the lines in Greg's face smoothed out. The desperate, reflexive tugging at his wrist restraints slowed, stopped. Greg lay still. His eyes were still fixed on Wilsons' face.

Wilson dropped the syringe into the sharps disposal unit - on this ward, it was sealed - and unfastened the restraints. Greg's right hand went to his thigh the moment it was freed, pressing and rubbing against the muscle around the great scar. He did not move otherwise, not when his ankle restraints or the belly-band were unfastened.

"Let's get you out of here."

The nurse said - early shift, not the same one as last night, but with the same wary look - "Doctor Moore needs to sign Greg out, Doctor Wilson."

"Doctor Moore's aware that Greg's being transferred," Wilson said. Greg was sitting up, his hand still on his thigh, staring at nothing. Doctor Moore would be aware as soon as he read this morning's e-mail. Wilson tucked an OR gown round him, pushing Greg's arms into the sleeves. "Help me get him into the chair."

The wheelchair wasn't sized right for a patient with Greg's length of leg, but it was the best Wilson had been able to scare up on less than an hour's notice. Greg's head literally wobbled back and forth as the nurse and Wilson folded him into it.

Wilson detoured to avoid going past the Diagnostics box. He shifted Greg from wheelchair to sofa. The last time Greg had sat there... he had slipped down to sit on the floor and offer Wilson a blow-job to get him out of going to rehab.

Greg seemed to be thinking something of the same thing: he croaked through a dry mouth, "What do you want?"

"Read these," Wilson said. He put a bottle of water and an emesis basin within reach, and saw Greg glance at them. "You can have ginger ale and crackers in an hour."

"What's this?" Greg looked down at the pile of case notes.

"Osteo - "

"Young man?"

"How did you know?"

Greg reached for the bottle of water, opened it, swilled some round his mouth and spat into the emesis basin. He sounded very tired. "If he s an old man, osteopenia would just be a fact of life, you make him comfortable, send him home. So he s young, which means it s most likely caused by cancer, but you want me to look at the notes because you don't want it to be cancer, you want me to find something else."

"MRI and PET scan were both negative. Twice. Your team's been working on this case for days."

"What do they think it is?"

"Read the notes."

Greg began to leaf through the first few pages. "Hank Wiggen," he said. "Well, that explains why Cuddy let you break me out of here. She'd give anything to beat the Yankees." He still sounded confused, but as Wilson watched, he read with more focus. After an hour, when Wilson produced the promised ginger ale and crackers, Greg said "Addison's." He picked up two crackers at once, stuffed them whole into his mouth, and crunched down in a splatter of crumbs. "The treatment for Addison's will trash what's left of his kidneys, and he's not a good candidate for a transplant, which means he needs a live donor. What's the matter, can't find a fan willing to lose his organs so Hank Wiggen can open against the Yankees?"

"His wife's a match, and she wants to give him one of her kidneys."

"What's the problem?"

"She's pregnant," Wilson said. "They'd been trying to have a baby since they met. Now she wants to have an abortion so she can be a donor..."

Greg laughed. He wasn't very loud, but he sounded genuinely amused. "So I got oxycontin because Cuddy's sentimental about rugrats?" He looked down at the notes. "She shouldn't have the abortion. He's probably going to die anyway."

There was an abrupt knock at the door. Greg flinched and his hand dropped to his thigh.

"If it's Doctor Moore, I'll tell him to go talk to Cuddy. She had those three guys from last night fired this morning."

"I'll blow you both if I don't have to go back." Greg said it with a shit-eating grin, but his eyes flinched away, and he dropped his head to look down at his lap.

"Come," Wilson called.

"Doctor Wilson," Chase said. "Can you speak to - " He broke off.

Greg looked up. Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. Greg and Chase were looking at each other: Greg was expressionless, Chase looked dumbfounded. "Doctor House," Chase said at length. "Good to see you. Tachycaridia. His heart s beating too fast, then it's bottoming out. Not responding to treatment. And I think he's hallucinating. It's not Addison's. Don't let his wife have the abortion." He ran out of breath and stared at Greg again. "Sorry. How are you, Doctor House?"

Greg's mouth twisted. "Wrong room." He looked at Wilson. "How long have I got? What dosage did you give me?"

Wilson told him. "Should last you twelve hours." Wilson glanced at his watch.

"More like six. Who's running Diagnostics?"

"I am," Chase said, simultaneously with Wilson. They looked at each other.

"Can you get Foreman and Cameron in here?"

"Why don't you come through to Diagnostics?" Chase asked.

"Too conspicuous," Greg said. "I'm supposed to be in the repair shop."

After a moment, Chase shrugged. "Will do. Can't hurt," he said to Wilson. "We now have no idea what's wrong with him."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"I thought _you_ were reporting to Doctor Wilson," Foreman groused. Then he saw who was on Wilson's sofa. The slave was wearing an OR gown, and his collar was conspicuous against his bleached throat. He hadn't been shaved for days. His bare legs stuck out casually, skinny, white and hairy: he had a bundle of notes on his lap.

"Doctor House," Cameron said, sounding so very sorry that Foreman thought he saw Greg wince.

"Wrong room," Foreman said briskly. "What is he doing here? Isn't he supposed to be in rehab?"

"He's out of rehab on my authority," Wilson said.

"And we're here on _my_ authority," Chase said. "What do you need to know, Doctor House?"

"I don't know," the slave said. His voice was croaky. He sounded awful.

"This is a waste of time," Foreman said. He saw Greg glance, helplessly, at Doctor Wilson.

"You can let me be the one to decide that," Chase said. "This week. Doctor House, what do you want us to do?"

"Tell me things," Greg said. He sounded fumbling and wearied. "Tell me one thing you didn't put down in the notes. I read everything that's there. Tell me what isn't there."

Foreman glanced sideways at Chase and Cameron, both of whom were looking at Greg in bewilderment. Chase cleared his throat. "Okay. Er. He's a baseball player."

Greg shrugged and pointed at Cameron. "Your turn."

"His wife loves him?" Cameron said, sounding uncertain.

Foreman looked from one to the other. This was absurd. "He doesn't have many visitors?"

"What do you mean, 'not many'?" Greg said.

"Foreman's right," Cameron jumped in. "His wife and his coach. No one else visits."

Greg pointed at Chase again.

"What?" Chase thought about it. "Oh. He refused to let me have a urine sample. He didn't seem to realise I could get it from his cath bag. Said it was a trust issue."

Greg pointed at Cameron.

"I don't know," Cameron said. She sounded upset. "I don't understand what you want."

"Anything you remember you didn't write down. _Anything_. Come on, I'm working to a deadline here."

"He didn't want his wife to have an abortion. He said you can't trade a child for a kidney. It s murder. I agreed with him," Cameron said at length, almost tearfully.

"Okay." Greg pointed at Foreman.

"I write everything down," Foreman said. He was angry. "This is a waste of our time."

"Something you remember about his wife, then. Or his coach. _Something._"

"She's hot," Chase said.

"Probably not relevant, but worth knowing." Greg was still pointing at Foreman. "You don't write everything down, no one does. what do you remember?"

"The coach has clubbed fingers," Foreman said suddenly. "I saw him taking a pill. A fresh prescription, a full bottle." He felt it like a light on inside him, burning out everything else, even rage. "Digitalis! We should have had the patient on suicide watch. I bet he stole the digitalis pills and OD'd on them. That explains the heart rate, the hallucinations - it's still Addison's."

"Good!" Greg was sitting up. "Now we're getting somewhere. It better not be Addison's, I won't be able to sleep tonight. What about his wife?"

"What about his wife? She's pregnant, they met in Japan, they're both in AA," Cameron said. "I wrote it all down, I took a full family history."

"Is she short-sighted? Does she have a cold? Is she color-blind? Is he color-blind?"

"No," Chase said.

"Yes," Cameron said. "She had a cold, a few months ago. She has anosmia - she can't smell."

"What about him?"

"He can smell," Foreman said. "He says his room smells like the men's room at Veteran's Stadium. He's right."

"His fault," Chase said. "Last time I tried to take a urine sample he spilled his cath bag all over my pants."

"She was an addict too," Greg said.

"She's been going to AA for over six months," Cameron said. "She wants to get pregnant. She isn't on anything."

"Not now," Greg said. "What _was_ she on? Why is Hank Wiggen so scared of a urine test if the last time he took steroids was five years ago?"

"What?" Cameron was staring.

"Cadmium poisoning," Greg said, simultaneously with Chase.

"How could they have gotten exposed to that much cadmium?" Cameron said.

"They'd have to be living on polluted groundwater," Foreman said. "We should check their home. They can't have been eating enough to do that kind of damage. It would take steel and batteries for breakfast."

"Grass," Chase said.

Greg grinned, an obnoxious grin for a slave. "They were smoking it. She stopped, he went on. And if he was getting high enough to kill him, he wasn't just rolling a single joint to relax at the end of a long hard day. Test his urine for THC. Bet you find enough of it for his piss to get you high if you drank it."

Cameron made a revolted noise. Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. Greg leaned back in the sofa. "Go find out," he said, just as if he were Doctor House. Foreman looked at Chase.

"It's your responsibility," he said, making it clear he was talking to Chase.

"Let's go find out," Chase said. He nodded. "Thank you, Doctor House."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Doctor Moore sent two security guards. Wilson loaded Greg back into the too-small wheelchair and had the security guards push him back to the rehab ward: he waited for long enough to page Cuddy, and walked with them. Doctor Moore was waiting in the rehab ward.

"He's functional," Wilson said flatly. "He just proved that."

"I wanted him completely detoxed from methadone. He was still incoherent this morning."

"He was in pain. I got him coherent with oxycontin. I got him _functional_ with oxycontin. We can continue that with regular doses."

"It's not a long-term solution."

"It _works_," Wilson said. "I got Cuddy's permission for today: why don't we go talk about this with her now?"

"Fine," Moore said. He jerked his head at the two security guards. "Get him back to the bed."

They pulled him up out of the chair and all but lifted him off his feet; he was limp between them as they moved him down the ward.

For a moment, it looked as if they had dropped him: Greg had fallen to one side before Wilson realized he had swung himself to one side, literally jerking himself out of their grip, and landed on hands and knees, scuttling towards the bed with the Castle Pharmaceuticals slave. It happened fast: they were both pulling their batons and heading for him as Greg hauled himself up by the foot of the bed and leaned over it. "Last night," he said, in a voice so loud and carrying it was audible by the door. "They were_ fired_. All three of them. This morning." The security guards caught up with him and one of them brought his baton down across Greg's hands with an audible thud: they had him in an under-arm grip and were hauling him back down the ward.

"Coherent and functional," Doctor Moore said. "I see."

"Hey," Wilson said, catching his breath. He went past the bed Greg had gone to: the slave in it had her head up, her eyes open, looking past Wilson, down the ward: at Greg.

The security guards had pulled off the gown and were fastening him down. One of them hit the side of his head with his open hand, pushing him down on to the mattress.

"Okay, that's enough," Wilson said. He checked Greg's hands: not broken, but bruised. Wilson couldn't pretend Greg didn't deserve it. That outburst was going to make it that much more difficult to justify the regimen to Cuddy.

_TBC_


	13. 113 Cursed

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee..._

**1.13 Cursed**

Rowan Chase had got out of Czechoslovakia, and into Australia, and become an internationally-renowned doctor, by relentlessly facing the facts, doing what was possible to postpone the inevitable, and a large amount of luck.

For the next three months, according to Sloan-Kettering, his life depended on all three.

He hadn't been sure he would visit PPTH. Even when he was walking through the door, he knew he could still turn back, and that might be best. He hadn't seen Robert since the boy was twenty, and they hadn't lived in the same house since the boy was fifteen.

(It would probably have helped if he had managed to attend the boy's mother's funeral, instead of showing up a couple of days later while the boy was packing up the house. But there had been important conflicting appointments, and they had been divorced for five years at that time. Still, the boy was always tetchy about such things.)

The boy had entered pre-med at 15, a seminary at 18, quit priest-training ar 20, and qualified as an intensivist by 28: and then he'd left Australia to work for an American Diagnostics department with the eminent but elusive Doctor Gregory House.

There were three people in the room: a young woman, too beautiful to make an accurate assessment of her age: a young and very sober-looking black man, and - Robert.

He was pulling on his jacket as Rowan opened the door: his eyes widened as he saw Rowan in the doorway. He hadn't changed: that was the oddest thing. Between twenty and thirty a man should change.

"Doctor Chase," Rowan said blandly. "You have a few moments."

Robert's eyes flickered away from Rowan: he was looking past him into the corridor. "Sorry, got to go." And he went.

"Can we help you?" the young woman asked.

He had made an appointment with a doctor in PPTH's oncology department, to give himself the confidentiality rights of a patient more than because he thought a doctor in this tiny teaching hospital would be able to tell him anything more than Sloan-Kettering already had. But he still didn't know if he would be able to tell Robert that he had lung cancer, and he certainly didn't want one of Robert's colleagues to tell him.

"I'm Doctor Rowan Chase," he said. "I was looking for my son Robert."

"Chase?" the two doctors said, simultaneously.

"Come in," the young woman said. "I'm Doctor Cameron. Chase had to go urgently, or I'm sure he would - " she trailed off.

"I'm Doctor Foreman. We're working on a case," the black man said. "He had an idea about where our patient might have picked up his infection."

"You're busy," Rowan said, courteously. "Tell my son I'm here for the SLE conference in New York, I'll stop by to see him some other time."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Doctor Wilson told him he had three months to live in such a sympathetic and kindly way that Rowan had an absurd impulse to thank him.

"I see you're next to the Diagnostics office," he said instead. "Doctor Robert Chase is my son. I met Doctors Foreman and Cameron earlier."

Wilson nodded. "Diagnostics has three fellows. Doctor Chase is a very good doctor, a very skilled intensivist."

It wasn't true, of course: no young man of thirty was "very skilled" at anything. But it was a courteous remark to make to the father, and Rowan nodded his appreciation. "I did not see Doctor Gregory House," he said. "He's away?"

"He's ill," Wilson said. "He will be returning to work shortly, but I can't say when." He met Rowan's eyes with a charming air of sincerity, and Rowan's suspicions were aroused: but he could not see why Wilson would have wanted to lie to him about the whereabouts of Doctor House.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Doctor Cameron, who was in charge of the department in Doctor House's absence, invited him to sit in on the differential: the patient was a 12-year-old male who seemed to have picked up anthrax playing in the attic of an old house. But when they put him on levaquin, the two nodules in his throat had swollen and blocked his breathing. They had switched him to rifampin without any change in the swelling: he was still intubated.

The patient had presented with spiking fever, congested chest coughing up green sputum, pain in breathing, atypical pattern for pneumonia on his X-ray and CT scan, and a single papular lesion on a scab on his arm.

They were running through the symptoms and the possible causes - Robert had sat down at the far end of the table from Rowan, and was staring out of the window, responding only when Doctor Cameron asked him a question - when the door opened, and a slave came in: wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a plain dark metal collar, typical slave work clothes in the US, and Rowan supposed he was a janitor, summoned to clean up vomit or a spill, and had come to the wrong room. He would presumably leave when he realized his mistake, and it would be inappropriate for Rowan to dismiss him: not his slave, not his hospital. Rowan later unpacked his thinking, but at the time, he came to that conclusion without missing a beat and simply went on talking: Doctor Cameron was staring hard at the slave with a shocked expression, and Doctor Foreman was scowling, and the slave would presumably realize his mistake and leave in a minute.

"Boy gets anthrax, but happens to be allergic to two antibiotics. Hate to step on anybody s toes, but is it possible that your guys got this one wrong?"

Robert didn't turn his head to look at Rowan. "The rash is classic anthrax."

"Except the color. No necrosis, no anthrax."

"Necrosis can theoretically take as long as two weeks," Chase said.

"What's Chase's dad doing here?" the slave asked.

Robert whirled his chair round and looked with the same shocked expression as Doctor Cameron.

Doctor Cameron stammered - "I asked him to sit in - we've got a patient with some auto-immune symptoms - "

"I know about your patient," the slave said. He moved, awkwardly, to sit down in the empty chair. "Parents are big donors. That's why Doctor Cuddy let me out early. And you didn't ask Chase's dad to sit in because of a boy who has a rash and pneumonia, you asked him to sit in because you're a sentimental idiot who thinks father and son only need to work together for all their problems to be resolved. So it s not anthrax. So we start over, what s changed? What do the nodules tell us?"

Rowan had put the available facts together. "Sarcoidosis," he said.

"Excellent," the slave said, exactly as if it was his business to approve Rowan Chase's opinions. "Send an ACE level. If it comes back positive, put him on methotrexate."

All three of the fellows got to their feet and left the room, as if racing to the door. The slave sat still, and smiled at Rowan. "That's an interesting accent you have there. I'd say Czech, with about thirty years of Aussie."

"You have quite an ear." Rowan stared at the slave. "You're Doctor Gregory House."

"My contract says I am inside this room," the slave said.

"You don't look well," Rowan observed.

"I've been in the shop. Getting fixed. Got to take care of the hospital equipment, keep it running. So why are you here?"

"The scleroderma conference. In New York. I just stopped by to see my son."

"Hard to miss, how happy he was to see you."

That was impertinent. Rowan looked at the slave, turning it over in his mind, unpacking his thoughts. "You are the property of this hospital?"

"Yes," the slave said.

And his contract doubtless permitted him a free rein in the territory of the Diagnostics department. So there would be no point complaining of his impertinence: and besides, it would show pettiness.

"Interesting to meet you," Rowan said, and stood up.

"Whoa," the slave said. "You literally wrote the book on auto-immune. You want to sit in on this?"

"You appeared to object to Doctor Cameron having done so."

"Having a visiting specialist sit in on a differential? How could I object to that?" The slave showed his teeth in what was apparently meant for a smile.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Rowan ate lunch in the hospital cafeteria: Wilson had told him to ask for the macrobiotic plate, and sure enough, they were able to produce something which he had grown accustomed to, in the months since diagnosis, if not actually to enjoy.

On the way back to Diagnostics, Robert appeared at his elbow. The first words out of his mouth were "Your diagnosis is wrong. No auto-immune disease. The swelling s probably just down because we ve got him on steroids. It's masking whatever's wrong.

"ANAs are unreliable," Rowan said. It was the first one-on-one conversation they'd had in ten years.

"Phospholipid antibodies are negative, so no lupus. Same for churg-strauss."

"You're arguing with a rheumatologist," Rowan said, amused. After ten years of silence, at that. "There's about twenty distinct auto-immune diseases "

"Why are you here?" Robert demanded.

"SLE conference," Rowan repeated the lie.

"You were in New York last year for the scleroderma conference, I didn t hear anything from you."

Last year, I thought we had another twenty years for you to come to your senses. "Just wanted to say hi this time."

"You said it, you re still here."

The point at which Rowan had realised his wife's drinking was spiralling out of control, had been when he had temporarily to curtail her allowance, at a time when he was making retrenchments to invest for their future. She had sold Stephen, their highly-trained and irreplaceable household manager, at a bargain price for a cash sale, and Rowan was fairly sure that neither he nor Robert had ever located all the stashes of money and gin she had tucked away. Rowan had been unable to buy Stephen back - the sale was valid, the dealer had resold him to someone who had known what a treasure he had acquired - and from then on, nothing Rowan could do had been able to curb or even disguise her drinking. Three years later, he had arranged for their son to enter pre-med at the age of 15 - Robert was an exceptionally intelligent boy - and divorced her. He had expected Robert to be as relieved to be rid of the burden as Rowan himself.

"I miss you," Rowan said.

"I was 15 years old when you walked out. Now you're walking back in?"

"I left your mother. I didn't leave you."

Robert's voice broke like a boy's. "Mum was living on gin and tonics, how was I supposed to take care of her?"

"She wasn't your responsibility."

"I know! She was yours."

"I'm sorry she died," Rowan said. A lie, but he was sorry that she had fallen to the point where death had been a happy release. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that. But she was falling apart long before I left."

Before he finished, Robert said, cutting him off "I've got to talk to House about this treatment."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

There was probably no point in staying. Not today. Rowan was waiting in the lobby for his taxi - he ought in any case to rest this afternoon - when he was surprised by the slave's voice at his elbow.

"Going back to the conference?"

Rowan turned and eyed him. The slave was wearing a polo-neck that disguised his collar. Perhaps a rule of his contract for seeing patients. It could not be reassuring to be treated by a slave.

"Afternoon panel," he said blandly. "I hope I can stay awake."

"I hope you can get in," the slave said. "You're not registered."

Rowan frowned at him.

"I get it," the slave said. "You had to make up a lie. Can't just tell your kid you're here to see him. What father does that?" He pointed at the tattoo mark, his finger unwaveringly accurate. "That little blue dot under your collar."

Rowan's hand moved to cover it. His shirt should have concealed it from the most observant eye.

"It's a tattoo for guiding radiation treatment," the slave said. "I was looking for it after I saw what you had for breakfast: brown rice and vegetables, macrobiotic diet. Popular with Hollywood starlets and cancer patients."

Doctor Gregory House was more famous than Doctor Rowan Chase: notorious as the doctor no one met, who never lectured outside his own small teaching hospital - a hospital _he_ had made famous by his presence there: a doctor who had virtually invented his own speciality, diagnostics, who could figure out what was wrong with a patient from the smallest of obscure clues. It had not occurred to Rowan before that a doctor could become that renowned after having been enslaved: it had not occurred to him until now that a doctor who was supremely skilled at diagnosing patients with obscure presentations or rare illnesses, would read a simple case of lung cancer like plain print on a white page.

"Lungs, stage four," Rowan said.

"You look good," the slave said, not sympathetically: he was assessing Rowan.

"I'm not. Came to the States to go to Sloan-Kettering. I also saw Doctor Wilson."

"What'd he say?"

"Three months."

"But you haven't told Robert. You don't want to burden him because you were such a lousy dad."

"You will not tell him," Rowan ordered. He was not amused by this degree of insolence.

"Yeah, it's better. I'll get to see his face when he reads his dad's obituary."

It would be discourteous to physically punish a slave who was the property of another hospital. "It's not your business," Rowan said heavily. He could see the taxi had arrived.

"I suppose it isn't," the slave said.

_*TBC*_


	14. 114 Control

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... (This is the first story in the Vogler arc. Sorry for the long delay in updating - I wanted to make sure I knew how the Vogler arc was going to work before I posted.)_

**1.14 Control**

House should have been doing his clinic duty. He walked into the Diagnostics box mid-morning, saying without other greeting "Thirty-two year old female, paralysis and severe pain in her right quad. Go."

There was no such patient in ER: Foreman looked up sharply. "How'd she get to you?"

The glance House threw him made Foreman wonder if he knew about the ER nurses. "She's the CEO of Sonyo Cosmetics. Three assistants and fifteen VPs checked out who should be treating her. Who da man? I da man. I always suspected."

Cameron said, her voice sounding strange, "Doctor House, I know the chances are very slim, but I'm sure you recognize that she may have what you had: a clot in her thigh."

Chase coughed. "A bit of a long shot."

Normally at this stage of the DDX, they all just listed whatever came to mind, and House either sent them off to perform tests for everything - or told them his preferred theory and made them perform tests for that. "What about a disc herniation?" Foreman offered.

Cameron responded before House did: "I don't know, Eric. If her disc were herniated, she d present with pain elsewhere, wouldn't she?"

Foreman glanced at Chase, who was looking disgusted, and at House, who looked mildly interested. House would stop it when he got bored. Boringly, Foreman said "Yeah, I suppose."

"You're right," Cameron said. She looked at Chase, and didn't seem to take in his expression. "A clot's also the most deadly, right, Robert?"

"True." Chase looked at House, as if appealling to him. "The clot breaks off, she could stroke and die."

"Doctor House," Cameron said, "I believe that they're right, and "

_Wait. _They're right? _This was _your_ idea -_ Foreman didn't say it.

House said "Stop talking."

"What?"

"You read one of those negotiating books, didn't you?" House asked. Getting to Yes: Fifty Ways to Win an Argument. The Hitchhiker s Guide to Being a Pal. In five seconds you just manipulated these two into agreeing with your point of view."

_I didn't agree with her! _Foreman didn't say it.

"Fellas, this is known as 'soft positional bargaining.'" House sounded cheerful. And to Foreman's surprise, he himself was smiling: this was amusing. "It's not going to work."

"Doctor House," Cameron said, "are you saying that she doesn t have a clot or are you saying that if she does have a clot she doesn't need blood thinners and an angiogram?"

"Chase, put her on blood thinners, do an angiogram."

Cameron looked unappeallingly pleased with herself.

"When that comes back negative," House added, "MRI the spine. If that's clean, cut her open and biopsy the leg."

"Excellent suggestion," Cameron said. Foreman scowled at her.

"Read less, more TV," House added, and turned back to the door. "I have another two hour's clinic duty. Doctor Foreman, you're with me."

"Doctor House!" Cameron's voice had suddenly changed. "You climbed all those stairs - is the new pain management _working_?"

House turned back and eyed her. "You're just delightful, aren't you. I'm not the patient. Foreman!" He was shuffling down the corridor before he had finished speaking, the last word a barked command.

Foreman scowled and followed him. House didn't look well: but he didn't look the way he usually did when he'd just finished clinic duty and climbed four flights to get to Diagnostics. They stopped at the elevators: House used his cane to punch the elevator button.

Greg used his cane. Foreman glanced sideways to see House looking him over, appraisingly. Greg.

Foreman had promised himself he would not fall into the slack habit Chase and Cameron had slipped into, of referring to the slave as "Doctor House" even outside Diagnostics. But he realized he was falling into it too, and worse, he knew why: inside or outside Diagnostics, Doctor House was _better_ than Foreman.

Not forever, he promised himself that: not forever. That moment of insight when all the zebras came together when he _knew_ what was causing the hallucinations and the heart problems, all from the coach's clubbed fingers, that was what House was teaching. He was learning. And someday, when Greg was gone permanently, or when Foreman was an attending who could apply for a position at another hospital, Foreman would have his own department.

The elevator doors opened; it looked crowded, but House stepped inside, and Foreman went with him. There were two other doctors in the elevator, one from pediatrics and one from ENT, and a third man who might be one of the hospital lawyers.

"Doctor Foreman," House said abruptly and loudly, "You should come find me if there's any interesting results with that case Doctor Cuddy asked me to take."

Foreman glanced at the other three men, and realized what was going on. He made a face. Chase had told him why House stayed out of elevators, and Foreman found it fairly disgusting.

"Sure, Doctor House," Foreman said, repeating his boring voice.

"Run lots of tests," House said. He was grinning suddenly. The doors opened. He raised his voice. "Perhaps we'll call these good doctors in for a consult." He stepped out of the elevator and Foreman followed; they were on the ground floor and House was heading for the clinic. "Come get me before noon if there's anything interesting," he added. He had stopped grinning, and his voice was a lot quieter. "In fact, come get me if there's any boring results, and we'll pretend they're interesting."

"Yes, Doctor House," Foreman said, and opened the clinic door for him. He was surprised to get a nasty scowl, but shrugged it off as he went back to run the tests: who knew _how_ House would react to anything?

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Officially, Vogler's hundred million dollars had been confidential until Cuddy made the announcement that he was now Chairman and he made his first speech at the Board meeting. Practically, of course, everyone who read the agenda and recognized his name knew what had likely happened: the Board members, their staff, and everyone their staff talked to. All the slaves the hospital owned had probably known there was a new Chairman of the Board before most of the staff had known.

Wilson decided, about halfway through the tearjerking story about Vogler's dad, that he really didn't like Vogler. He wasn't sure why. But it took him a few seconds to realize that everyone else on the Board was clapping the end of Vogler's speech, and he should too.

Cuddy took Vogler off on a tour of the hospital, and Wilson went down to the paediatric oncology ward; he saw Cuddy and Vogler again when they reached the oncology department and Vogler had to be introduced.

"He's... different." Cuddy said, when they were walking between wards, passing the mezzanine floor.

"Everyone's buddy," Vogler responded, as if he was continuing a conversation they'd already had.

"No, not exactly," Cuddy said. "We have a meeting scheduled for two o'clock: let's talk about him then."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The Diagnostics conference room was empty. Chase wandered through to House's office, which was also empty, and sat down in the chair behind the desk. The office was clean and uncluttered: there was nothing in it that wasn't work related. It was a good place to think in, and Chase was trying to think.

He'd thought for ages that the thing House could do, the pulling ideas from the air that turned out to be correct, was something that only House could do. Cameron couldn't do it - she came up with ideas sometimes by taking an obsessive interest in the patient's family history. Chase had never been able to do it: he got ideas, when he did, by just getting the patient to talk. House claimed everyone lied, and they did, but get a patient to talk for long enough and you get some kind of truth out of them.

But this woman didn't want to talk. She wanted to work or she wanted to die.

And Chase had seen Foreman do the House thing: so it was possible for ordinary people to learn it. Foreman wasn't a genius. Chase stared at the angiogram slide he had taken: there was nothing there, but House had looked at slides with no more information and come up with something genius. The door opened: Chase looked up as House came in, followed closely by Foreman and Cameron. Unhurriedly, Chase got up and yielded the seat to House.

"It s not an inflammatory process, it's not a clot because Chase s angio says so, and it's not cancer because her toosh is perfect. Anybody else got an Aunt Elisa with weird stuff?" House looked down at the angiogram.

"Maybe it s worth looking into " Cameron said.

"I thought you said Carly's angio was clean," House interrupted her. He had the voice that said he'd seen something.

"It was clean," Chase said. He moved out of the way as House got up to put the scans up on his light board.

House had seen something. Chase stared at the scans.

"You guys see the problem here?" House invited.

Foreman moved closer, staring at the light board. "There's no indication of any abnormalities. No lesions, no spurs, no masses "

"Her toes are screwed up," House said. He didn't sound amused, not really. He sounded angry. "They're backwards. Do you guys know how much surgery it's going to take to swap them back?"

Chase could feel fear like a yawn opening inside him. He'd done something wrong. He was going to to get in trouble. "What are you talking about?"

"Either she literally has two left feet or you angio-ed the wrong leg," House said, and now he did sound angry.

Chase went closer, peering at the screen. He hadn't done that. He knew he hadn't. He protested, hardly aware of what he was saying, and House interrupted him."Or maybe it was 'Jenny'! How come some resident signed this radiology form? Were you even in the room?"

Chase swallowed. Obviously he had. He had been talking to Jenny, flirting with her, he hadn't liked to take the forms away from her and make a point of signing them, but - he couldn't have done the wrong leg, and he couldn't be in this kind of trouble, not with someone who could _fire_ him, not in front of Cameron and Foreman - "I'll redo her angio straight away - " he said, hastily, appeasingly.

House turned on him. "You'll do _nothing!_"

Chase held himself still. He'd heard House shout louder than that, but he'd never heard that kind of rage. He was going to be fired. He was going to lose this job - he'd lose his work visa - he'd have to go back to Australia - his dad would find out - his dad -

Foreman left. Cameron was still standing there, though Chase could barely see her. House had told Foreman to re-do the angiogram. No one seemed to say anything else to him. House walked out, and Cameron left a moment later. Chase stared at the scans, the destruction of his life.

"I can't believe I did that."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

It was a sunny day, quite still, and Wilson picked up the charts he had to review in the next hour and took them and himself to one of the outdoor tables. Sitting in the sun, he could briefly forget the problem of the new Chairman. There were a lot of problems with the owner of a pharmaceuticals company effectively being the owner of a teaching hospital: Wilson hoped that Cuddy had considered them all.

The tip of a cane tapped down on the table beside his charts, and Greg sat down as Wilson looked up. He had to quell a sudden smile. This was the first time that Greg had sought _him_ out.

"My patient needs a heart transplant," Greg said, without other introduction.

Wilson was on the transplant committee. His pager hadn't gone off to let him know there was a meeting..

"Thoracentesis revealed a transudate?"

"Haven't gotten it back yet," Greg said.

"Her MUGA scan, what was the ejection fracture?" Wilson asked. "Maybe you could treat it, surgically."

Greg's eyes were fixed on him. "Haven't done the MUGA."

Wilson thought about it. "Then how do you know she needs a heart transplant?"

Greg almost smiled. "I got my aura read today. It said someone close to me had a broken heart."

"And if you weren't talking in code, that would mean...?"

Greg lifted his chin. "I can't tell you anything. Professional responsibility."

Wilson laughed. Greg was more likely to refer to himself as hospital equipment than to cite professional ethics. "Like that matters to you."

"Not my professional responsibility," Greg said, still watching him intently, "yours. New regime, you've got to keep your head down."

"Now, that s good thinking," Wilson said affably, "because I was going to go right to Cuddy and rat you out as soon as you were done talking."

Greg glanced sideways at the wing of the hospital where Cuddy's office was located. "I'm not saying you want to..."

Wilson stared at him. Greg seemed to have stopped talking. "Hey, you brought this up for a reason. You need to talk to me."

"I can t," Greg said, after a minute. He sat there staring at Wilson, his brain almost visibly working. "I can't."

"You sure you're doing the right thing?" Wilson asked. He saw two of the fellows come out of the hospital, spot Greg, and walk towards their table. Wilson hoped Greg wasn't already in trouble.

"I've come up with a few really great rationalizations," Greg said.

"Sorry to interrupt, Doctor House," Chase said. He looked more apologetic than usual. "We have a problem."

"Thoracentesis revealed a transudate," Cameron said, to Greg.

Wilson looked at Cameron. She wasn't the kind of person to play a joke like this. She sounded as if she were telling Greg something he didn't know already.

"We did an echo," Cameron said. "She's in severe congestive heart failure. She needs a heart transplant. We'll get her on the list immediately "

"She's already on the list," Greg said.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Cuddy believed she had thought through all the problems inherent in accepting a huge donation from the owner of a pharmaceutical company. She knew the exact remit of a chairman of the Board, and she had been administrator of the hospital and Dean of Medicine at the university for long enough that it would be relatively easy to warn him if he stepped over his remit. There would be more drug trials, but if properly conducted, that wasn't even a bad thing.

She hadn't expected Vogler to ask, on his first day as Chairman, "What is a 'Department of Diagnostic Medicine'?"

Cuddy turned it off, "That s Doctor House's department. They deal with cases that other doctors can't figure out."

Vogler sat down in the comfortable chair in front of her desk, without being invited. "It's a financial black hole. Department costs us $3 million a year, treats one patient a week."

"Doctor House's prestige is what attracts a good many of our larger donors."

"Doesn't attract me," Vogler said bluntly.

"He saves one patient per week," Cuddy said. It occurred to her that Vogler was unlikely to be impressed right now by the shoal of lesser donors and grant-awarding bodies who provided hospital funds.

"What about everyone else? His department s not going to find the cure for breast cancer."

Cuddy was startled. All the department heads apart from Diagnostics had research projects, but she hadn't expected Vogler to notice that gap yet. "Uh, maybe not, but "

"Do you have sex with 'Doctor House'?" Vogler asked.

"What? No." It was a stunningly inappropriate question.

"But you did, right? A long time ago? That's why you bought him?"

"That's an incredibly inappropriate question," Cuddy said, almost on autopilot. Vogler didn't even look lewdly curious, just matter-of-fact.

"If the hospital is spending three million a year to maintain a slave for whom your judgment is compromised by prior or current relationship, that is my business," Vogler said.

"He's an extraordinary resource for this hospital," Cuddy said. "That is all you need to know."

"The other doctors use him for sex," Vogler said. "I've been in the hospital less than a day and I've found that out. Slaves get used, that's what they're there for, but not at running costs of three million a year. _Is_ that what he's kept for?"

"No," Cuddy said. "He's been instructed to report any inappropriate sexual use to me."

"I m sure you've told him. And yet, the other doctors know he won't. I'm just wondering if that's a reflection on him, or on you."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Faced with a tableful of be-suited doctors, Greg looked thin and awkward in his work clothes with the metal collar dark against his throat. He'd been brought before the transplant committee by two security guards - it occurred to Wilson, as Greg ran through the medical details Wilson already knew, that Cuddy must specifically hire security guards who were substantially taller and stronger than Greg.

"Greg," Cuddy said briskly, "I'm confused by your time and date stamps. It appears that you put Carly on the transplant list before you did these tests."

"I had a hunch," Greg said.

"You don't have hunches. You _know_."

"Look, if the tests had come back differently, obviously I would have taken her off the lists, but on the long shot..."

The door opened, and Vogler walked in. Greg stopped talking for an instant, standing hunched between the two guards.

"...on the long shot I was right, I didn't want to waste time."

"Are there any exclusion criteria we should know about?" Cuddy asked.

"CAT scan revealed no tumors and Doctor Wilson found no trace of cancer," Greg said.

"What about any other criteria?" Cuddy repeated. She seemed to think there was something wrong, even without the clue Greg had given Wilson. He looked frail and breakable. Wilson imagined, for an instant, saying "Greg came to me before this meeting and made clear there was a problem, we should find out what - "

And the guards would take him away.

"No atherosclerotic vascular disease," Greg said, over the high thin whining that filled Wilson's mind. Slave evidence was taken under torture. Greg wasn't giving evidence right now, he was presenting a medical case. Wilson could change that with just a few words.

"Are there any - " Cuddy asked, and Greg interrupted, briskly.

"No pneumonia, no bacteriemia, no Hep-B or C or any other letters."

Wilson wondered if that visit had been a sincere effort at communication or a blatant piece of manipulation.

"Substance abuse?" Cuddy asked. "Any history of - "

"No alcohol, no drugs," Greg responded briskly.

"Any psychiatric conditions, history of depression - "

"She's a little depressed," Greg said, "but turns out she needs a heart transplant."

Wilson nearly covered his face with his hands. He'd told Greg he wouldn't rat him out, but that was when he hadn't seriously believed there was anything to rat on. Now he did. Cuddy was looking at Vogler, who was studying Greg, expressionless but intent. Cuddy knew, but couldn't prove it: Wilson had enough information to get Greg into Disciplinary.

"Greg, if you subvert or mislead this committee, you will be subject to disciplinary action."

There was a pause. Wilson didn't stand up or say anything.

"Doctor Cuddy, do you have any reason to think that I would lie?" Greg asked.

"I simply want you to answer the question," Cuddy said. "Is there anything on the recipient exclusion criteria that would disqualify your patient from getting a heart?"

There was. There must be, even if Wilson didn't know what it was. He understood that Greg had come to him because he didn't want Wilson to figure it out in committee: because he didn't trust Wilson not to say something if it were sprung on him then. He ought to be angry with Greg, but he felt a strange species of admiration: he had no doubt, whatever the motivation, that Greg was doing this for his patient.

Greg looked down the table at Wilson for the first time: his face was expressionless. He glanced at Vogler. "No."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The heavy summer rain was running down the windows of the Diagnostic conference room. Cameron was trying to do some paperwork, but wasn't realy able to focus: two security guards had taken Doctor House away, and his cane was still lying on the table. It had only been to give medical testimony to the transplant committee, and it had happened before in the same way and Doctor House had come back, unharmed.

But that had been before Cameron had seen Doctor House being taken off for disciplinary action. He made that horrible helpless noise. He came back hurt. Cameron had no seniority in the hospital, no way to protect him: she wished she did.

Chase was staring out at the rain. He had made that mistake with the angio, but it hadn't made any difference - there was no clot in either leg. Doctor House fired his fellows for two reasons: they bored him, or they put the patient at risk. Cameron knew she and Chase and Foreman were a good team, even if all they did was help Doctor House by reflecting back his ideas: and she knew Doctor House knew it too. Chase looked ... almost afraid, Cameron thought.

She said out loud, compassionately, "He s not going to fire you."

Foreman snorted. "I'd fire you. Bye bye."

Chase continued to stare out of the window. "If I screw up and the patient dies, I'll never get another job."

Foreman said roughly, "So go stick your head between your legs and lick your wounds in Stadt."

"Well. I like it here." Chase turned round and looked at them, "You guys don t think it s weird House knew the patient needed a heart transplant before we did any heart tests?"

"That's House," Cameron said. "He knows things."

"But usually, he's putting it in our face," Chase said. There was something about his tone of voice Cameron didn't like."Telling us how cleverly he figured it out. This time, nothing. Just 'I had a hunch.'"

"It is weird," Foreman agreed.

Chase turned away again to look out of the window, his fingers drumming restlessly. After a few minutes, without saying anything, he left the room.

Foreman was gone to do some ER work by the time Doctor House came back. He went to the table and picked up his cane, setting it to the ground with a click. Cameron set down the phone. "They just stopped Carly's heart."

Doctor House nodded.

"And your dumb patient - "

"They're all oh, the guy who can't talk." That must have been someone Doctor House had seen in the clinic: it was unusual for someone like that to come back and insist on seeing Doctor House again, but the voice speaking for Mr Van Der Meer had been quite definite.

" - he scheduled an appointment to see you."

Doctor House's lips moved, either a smile or a sneer. "Oooh, goody." He spoke without much expression. He was standing leaning on his cane, looking as if he expected Cameron to go away: he didn't ask where Chase or Foreman were.

"I wanted you to know Chase is worried you're going to fire him," Cameron said.

She didn't know what she had hoped for: but when Doctor House decided to fire someone, he generally made no secret of it.

"It's bad enough that screw-ups cost lives," Doctor House said. "Now we've got Vogler, screw-ups cost jobs. I want Chase scared. I want him doing everything he can to protect his job."

Then he wasn't planning to fire Chase. Cameron decided she was relieved: the team wouldn't be the same without him. Hopefully, Doctor House could be persuaded to tell Chase that directly.

"Doctor House, if you were in his position wouldn t you be more likely to perform well if you were reassured and "

That got a reaction. "Oh, will you stop it with the book! Why are you doing this?"

"I'm not doing anything," Cameron said, defensively.

"You're manipulating everyone," Doctor House said. It was a diagnosis. Said the way House announced the easy diagnoses.

Cameron swallowed. "People... dismiss me."

Doctor House's blue eyes widened. He was looking at her with sudden attention. It was disconcerting.

"Because I'm a woman, because I'm pretty, because I'm not aggressive. My opinions shouldn't be rejected just because people don't like me."

Foreman and Chase didn't like her, Cameron realized as she said it. And she was pretty sure House didn't. Or did he? He wasn't yelling at her any more. He was looking at her with the kind of attention he'd give an interesting case.

"They like you," House said after a moment's focussed attention. "Everyone likes you."

There was a pause. House looked away. He stepped to one side, circling Cameron, heading for his office: in a minute he'd be in there, with the door shut, and going after him would be conspicuous, obvious -

"Do you?"

House turned. He moved slowly. He stared at Cameron, saying nothing.

"I have to know," Cameron said.

"No," House said.

He was lying. Cameron felt a jump in her throat. He was lying. "Okay," she said, and turned away, leaving him alone.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson was finishing the last of the charts he had meant to review. The patient - Carly - had her new heart, and whatever matter Greg had concealed from the transplant committee was in the past. Vogler wouldn't be around so much: today had been his first day.

The door opened, without knocking, and Vogler and then Cuddy walked in. Wilson glanced up, and stood up. "What can I do for you?"

"Doctor Cuddy advises me we'll want two witnesses for this, and that it would be inappropriate to expect the Diagnostics fellows to be present. Would you come with us, Doctor Wilson?"

Vogler had a grave, serious voice. Wilson decided, again, that he didn't like him.

The glass box of the conference room was empty and unlit. There was a single light on in the office. Vogler switched the main light on: it dazzled.

There was a noise from the office: Greg getting to his feet. The door opened and he stood in the office doorway, without his cane, blinking.

"Just wanted to stop by and introduce myself," Vogler said, with a kind of heavy playfulness. "I'm Edward Vogler, new Chairman of the Board. In a way, I guess that makes me your owner."

Greg let go of the edge of the doorway, and made two steps into the room. He stood looking at Vogler, his chin lifted, his stance braced. He looked as if he expected to get hit. "Sorry," he said. "They forgot to teach me about this in slave school."

Vogler laughed. He waved with his hand, beckoning Greg closer. "That's understandable. You kneel down." He pointed. "Right there."

Greg moved awkwardly without his cane. The spot where Vogler had pointed was just by his feet. Wilson stood still, eyeing Cuddy. She didn't have much expression, but what there was, didn't look approving.

"That was my very first heart transplant meeting," Vogler said."Very exciting."

Kneeling without any support was clearly a painful balancing act for Greg. It was almost painful to watch. He got down on his knees and looked up at Vogler. "Trust me. Six Flags, way more exciting."

Vogler smiled, faintly. He ruffled Greg's hair with one hand. "Patient's very lucky to have such a passionate doctor who stands up for what he believes in."

Greg's head had jerked back, but not far: Vogler's hand never lost contact with his hair. He lifted his face to Vogler. He swallowed. "Thank you, sir."

"Yeah," Vogler said. He removed his hand from Greg's head and slid it into his pocket, pulling out a glass bottle with a pharmacy label, not PPTH's. "The nurse found this in the patient s purse."

"What?" Cuddy sounded genuinely startled. Greg was staring at the bottle, looking as if he knew he should look surprised. "Why wasn't I told? Why did the nurse give it to you?"

"I am the chairman of the board," Vogler said, slowly. "I think she felt it was inappropriate to make it a medical matter. But she explained to me what it meant."

"Which nurse was it?" Cuddy said.

"I was told in confidence, Doctor Cuddy," Vogler said. "You understand about being told in confidence, don't you? And of course Greg couldn't have known. Could you, Greg?" He held the bottle out so that Greg could read the label: it was ipecac.

Wilson dived headlong through understanding: ipecac, that could damage heart muscle if used regularly, as bulimics used it - Carly was bulimic. She probably hadn't wanted the physical examination for colon cancer because it would have revealed marks of self-harm. And Greg had known. Somehow, Greg _had_ known.

"Tough being a doctor," Vogler said thoughtfully. "You've got all that power. The power to play God."

Greg's face was expressionless. His voice was meek. "I don t envy the transplant committee their responsibility. They basically would have been forced to kill that poor girl. I m not sure I could have done that."

"This is not a game, Greg."

Greg shook his head. He swallowed. "I know."

"You need to know that, don't you, Greg?" Vogler put the ipecac bottle into his pocket. "You've got a great deal of latitude here. You get to play doctor, inside these walls. But you're just a slave. No power to say no. So I'm going to give you something very important. My protection." He fished out something else, shiny and metal, a tag, and he bent over Greg and his hands were moving at Greg's collar.

"Doctor Cuddy and Doctor Wilson are witnesses," Vogler said, glancing at them both. "I now have a sexual exclusivity tag on you. If any employee of this hospital makes use of you, under any circumstances, that's a disciplinary offense. You can make that clear to anyone who attempts your use. If you fail to report unauthorised sexual use, you are subject to disciplinary action. You will keep yourself well-groomed and tidy: I don't care to be embarrassed by the appearance of slaves I have tagged. Otherwise your responsibilities are whatever Doctor Cuddy says they are."

He looked down at Greg. "Is that clear?"

Greg's gaze was fixed on Vogler's face. "Yes, sir," he said.

They left Greg kneeling in the Diagnostics box. Outside the corridor Vogler thanked them both, courteously, and set off for the exit, his PA catching him up on the way: a graceful young slave with a smart collar.

Wilson stared at Cuddy, who shrugged and waved her hand. "He doesn't _want_ Greg," she said, quite coolly. "He's just affronted that a very expensive slave is getting screwed around with..."

"...in his hospital," Wilson said, tasting bile.

Cuddy shrugged again, eyeing Wilson sharply. "Don't think you can ignore that tag. If you wanted him, you had your chance to tag him."

Wilson nodded. That had already sunk in. Greg was safe... at least from the dangers he faced in elevators.

**tbc**

_I have 15 and 16 written, and I'm working on 17. But I'd been keeping you all waiting for so long (*waves at Story Alert list!*) that I wanted to let you have this chapter. I'll post 15 when 17 is done and then post 16 and 17 on a daily basis. Yes, the "In the Closet" occasional series developed plottiness, but that was Amber's fault, nothing to do with me. I may update that if I get distracted from 17._


	15. 115 Mob Rules

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... (This is the second story in the Vogler arc, and it's WAY longer than any of the rest. Sorry about that!)_

**1.15 Mob Rules**

Wilson opened his office door, balancing coffee and a muffin one-handed: when he saw Greg's long legs he nearly dropped both.

Greg was sitting on the sofa, quite still, cane planted between his legs, forehead resting on the handle of his cane.

A small carton was sitting on the floor by Wilson's desk. He put coffee and muffin down on his desk, and picked up the carton. There was a small folder, a black iPod, a tiny painted box, a yo-yo, and a tennis ball - not a real tennis ball, Wilson realized, a brightly-colored fuzzy fake for children to play with. There was also a trumpet case - battered and old. John Henry Giles had given it to Greg.

"It's your stuff," Wilson realized, very nearly putting the box down on his coffee.

"No," Greg said.

He stared at Wilson unspeaking for what felt like quite some time. The collar, and the shiny tag that had Vogler's name on it, got more and more obvious to Wilson the longer Greg looked at him.

"I can't have stuff," Greg said finally. He shrugged and pushed on the cane to get to his feet. "You keep it."

"Greg?"

Greg pivoted and turned to look at him. "What?"

"You know where the key to my office is, right?"

Greg looked at him. After a moment, he almost smiled. "I can use elevators now," he said.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The first time Bill Arnello saw Doctor House, he didn't look any happier about the situation than Bill was. A young blond kid with some kind of English type accent was saying "Liver, kidney, diabetes " and the tallest man in the group of four, with a mouth like a sucked lemon, said "Check for everything, feds are paying. We're gonna turn a profit on this one, boys."

The feds had insisted on sending Joey to the teaching hospital. There was some kind of genius doctor there, they said, Doctor House, who'd be able to figure out why Joey had collaped and how to get him well enough in time to testify. The Family had no connections inside the university: Bill had been unable to get any background on House, only a verbal description from a capo whose crew sometimes worked the free clinic. Tall, blue eyes, dark hair, mid-forties, not much of a talker, walked with a limp.

"Doctor House, Bill Arnello." He held out his hand and waited for House to shift his cane from right to left. House looked surprised but his grip was firm. Aside from "not much of a talker", the descrip was dead on.

"I'm a lawyer, I represent Mr. Smith. What's wrong with him?"

House let go of his hand. "Do I come to you with my problems?" He turned away, glancing at the clock. The three subordinate doctors with him hurried off -

"He's also my brother," Bill said.

"What, you changed your name? 'Smith' wasn t good enough for you?" House was walking to the elevators, brisk despite the cane. He pressed the elevator button almost with a flourish.

"His name s Joey, he's my only brother."

"He's important to you, got it. So, no placebos for him, we ll use the real medicine." The elevator doors opened: House walked in and turned, looking him over. "Well, this was fun, let's do it again soon."

Bill followed him in.

"Brother in the Mafia?" House asked. The elevator door closed. "So, just Joey?"

Bill ignored him. Doctor House was downright chatty outside of clinic hours. The elevator was starting to move.

"I was hoping for a nickname. Joey Mango. Joey the Wrench."

The elevator was between floors. Bill hit the emergency stop.

Doctor House backed away from Bill with a lurch and was standing as far away as the elevator allowed. "People know where I am."

"I want you to do your job. Diagnose him, fix him, and keep him here."

House didn't respond immediately. He was standing with his back to the corner, clutching his cane with both hands and leaning on it. "You know... we generally only deal with patients when they're sick." He looked scared - he looked like he really thought Bill might take his cane away from him and hit him with it, right here in the middle of the hospital - but he wasn't begging or promising anything. Bill liked that in a man, even if he needed to make clear to House why he should do what he was told.

"If you release my brother to the government, and he does what they want, even if you fix him, he s dead. I need time to convince him of that." Bill shut off the emergency stop. The elevator started moving again. "Good news is," Bill said briskly, "if you screw up you don't have to worry about a malpractice suit. If he s dead, one by one, I'll take away the things you love until there's nothing left."

House looked astonished. The elevator door opened. Bill walked out. Threats were more effective when you didn't hang round for a reaction. From behind him, he heard Doctor House say quietly, almost flatly "So, on the Mafia thing, that s a yes."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

His full name was Hunter James Thomson, but really he was an okay little kid. Secretly, Henry called him Jimmy. Eventually Mom and Dad would have to know that Henry never used the dorky name "Hunter" for him, but one of the cool things about the holiday in Barbados was that Henry could just tell anyone, like the clinic receptionist, "my brother Jimmy". Except they'd waited for an hour, and he could feel Jimmy's distress through his arms, in his chest. He didn't feel adult and responsible any more. Everyone said the PPTH clinic was the place to go, but the waiting room smelled of sick people and fear.

Henry held the kid on his lap. They were in a treatment room at last. It smelled of disinfectant.

The doctor looked them over when he came in, one brisk blue-eyed glance that did nothing for Henry's confidence.

"Hey," the doctor said, unexpectedly, "I'm with you. Old enough to drink, old enough to do something really stupid and make yourself a baby."

Henry wasn't even sure if the doctor was joking or not. It was kind of cool to think he looked like Jimmy's dad. "He's my brother. I'm watching him while my parents are in Barbados. He's having trouble breathing and there s a lot of wheezing."

The doctor fitted his stethoscope into his ears and stooped - he was very tall - to listen to Jimmy's breathing. Jimmy had stopped crying, fascinated.

"Whistling," the doctor said. "Technically. Upper airways, nose." He sounded comfortingly bored. Jimmy reached up to grab at the stethoscope, and the doctor deflected his plump hand with his own. He reached for the counter, picking out a sterilized pair of tweezers, and skinning the wrapper.

Henry was feeling reassured enough to ask what he'd been too afraid to put into words before "If he s got the croup, that could become meningitis, right?"

"Absolutely." The doctor leaned over Jimmy, tilting his head back.

"I was just studying," Henry said, talking too much in relief, somehow sure everything was going to be OK. "And all of a sudden I hear him crying and sounding all weird. My parents are going to kill me."

The doctor was sliding the tweezers into Jimmy's nose. He sounded casual and bored. "I doubt it."

"You don t know them," Henry said. He'd gone to the free clinic on purpose, because there shouldn't be any records. But they'd made him fill in a form. If Jimmy was sick, his parents would have to know.

"No, I doubt you were studying while your parents were away." Unexpectedly, the tweezers slid out again, holding Mr Blue. "Hello, officer," the doctor said, sounding both pleased and entertained. "You might want to rinse this off before you let him play with it again."

Mr Blue was covered in snot. Jimmy had got hold of it from the toy train set: it usually stood on the platform under the toy tree with the fading paper leaves.

The doctor's pager beeped. He pulled it out of his pocket one handed, and glanced at it: without saying a word, he left the room. Jimmy wasn't whistling any more. Henry leaned his head against Jimmy's head, and hugged him.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Joey was a few years older than Bill. Joey had been out doing "work" (and jailtime) when Bill had been at school and at college. When Bill was a little kid, Joey was the one he always ran to: Joey taught him how to fight, and when not to fight: Joey bragged of his smarts: Joey shouldn't be lying there helpless in a hospital bed, waiting to be sent back to the feds to testify.

And Bill didn't like the blond kid.

It wasn't the accent. Bill wasn't prejudiced. And it wasn't the bad news. Even if there was no way Joey had picked up Hep C.

"Well, it's not all bad news," the blond kid said kindly. "It can often be cured, and even if not, it's manageable."

"How'd my brother get this?" Bill asked. That tone of voice was why he didn't like the kid. Rich kids who needed to learn they couldn't have it all their own way talked like this.

"Usually it involves the exchange of bodily fluids..." the blond kid trailed off.

"Bodily fluids, what are you talking about?" He knew what the kid was talking about: he was claiming Joey had bottomed. Joey was a made man, a capo: he didn't bottom to anyone.

"There are many ways the virus can be transmitted," the blond kid said, sounding as if he only now realized what he was getting into. "Sharing needles, blood transfusions " But he didn't even sound apologetic.

Bill got up. He was really angry now. Needles. Junk was for losers, for cattle. And the blond kid knew Joey had never had a blood transfusion in his life. "Hey!" He pointed his finger into the blond kid's face. "Nobody talks to my brother like this, okay?"

"Fine." The blond kid sounded nervous now. But still with no idea of what trouble he was in. "I've no idea how he got it. But he has Hepatitis-C. We're going to start him on Interferon "

Bill didn't lose his temper. When he slapped the blond kid hard across the face, it was to make his point clear. "He doesn t have it, don t mention it again, don t treat him for it."

The blond kid stared at him, eyes wide. He looked angry, in a futile, frustrated kind of way. But he shut up.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

House had been wearing one of his rollnecks this morning. He wore them for clinic duty, and occasionally when he made a planned visit to a patient. He had never bothered to wear one inside the Diagnostics box before. He was clean-shaven, too: there was a grooming room for male slaves to get shaved, and House must have been there that morning.

Yesterday, they'd had that conversatIon. House had said he didn't like her. He'd been lying.

She and Chase were alone together: Joey was unconscious in the MRI.

"Did House seem weird to you?"

Chase glanced at her. "Are you expecting him to be weird?"

What would it be like, to have a relationship with someone like House? He'd worn the rollneck. He hadn't wanted them to see his collar. Maybe he hadn't wanted Cameron to see his collar. "We spoke about how we felt," she told Chase, glossing over the brief, uncomfortable exchange yesterday.

Chase properly looked at her. He was astonished. "You told him you liked him?"

"No, of course not." Cameron couldn't imagine being able to start such a conversation. Not with her boss. Not with a slave.

"What are you talking about, then?"

"I asked him if he liked me."

Chase looked at her full on, and looked away, shaking his head. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I like him," Cameron admitted.

"You_ like_ him, like him?" Chase asked, with emphasis. "You'd never be able to tag him."

"Doesn't matter," Cameron said. She didn't want to tag House. It made her feel uncomfortable to think about him in those terms. "He doesn't like me." She was not going to admit to anyone that she'd known he was lying.

"Hey, he doesn't like anybody," Chase said, turning his full attention back to the MRI. "And nobody likes him."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

At least this time, when Jimmy struggled with his breath and Henry could hear the wheezing, he knew what it was. It was late in the evening and the clinic was still crowded. He asked the receptionist at the PPTH clinic if he could see the same doc as before, and the receptionist told him no, no guarantees unless you paid for an appointment: all the doctors in the hospital did free clinic duty for a few hours a week.

But the same tall guy with the blue eyes came through the door, looked them both over, and reached for the tweezers even before he listened to Jimmy's breathing.

Last week Henry had shown Jimmy his only magic trick: he could back palm a quarter and pull it out of Jimmy's nose. It was a good trick, and Jimmy had loved it.

He was explaining unhappily to the doctor that it was probably his fault, as the doctor tried to get hold of whatever it was Jimmy had shoved up there. Jimmy wouldn't hold his head still; he didn't like the tweezers.

"Now he won t stop shoving stuff up there," Henry said.

The door opened abruptly, and a man in a suit walked in. He didn't look like a doctor. He looked like a wiseguy.

"Doctor House," he said sharply.

"Got a crisis here!" the doctor said.

Jimmy actually made a noise like a growl, and shook his head, dislodging the the tweezers. "It's okay," Henry said. Jimmy nearly got the doctor's hand with his teeth, and he hadn't bitten anyone in months. This was so embarrassing.

The wiseguy leaned over them. He brought his face close to Jimmy's. "_Stop!_" he said. Henry felt Jimmy freeze.

The doctor glanced at the wiseguy. But Jimmy was still: the tweezers pulled out one of the toy firefighters. They'd been crewing the engine. One of them must have fallen on the floor when Henry had put the whole train set away.

The doctor looked at the wiseguy again. "It's a neat trick."

The wiseguy said "You have to believe you ll actually hurt them."

Jimmy was leaning into Henry's chest, his small body very light, his breathing coming now without that awful whistling noise.

The doctor stood up. He was very tall. The wiseguy was looking at him, frowning.

"What's that you're wearing?"

The doctor's mouth twisted: "Lab coat, grey roll-neck, jeans - "

The wiseguy's hands lashed out and caught him by the neck. Henry stood up with a sudden cry of fear, but the wiseguy's hands weren't round the doctor's throat: he was pulling on the rollneck, pulling it down.

There was a slave collar round the doctor's throat.

Henry gaped.

"What's that you're wearing?" the wiseguy repeated, harshly. "The feds had a _slave_ doctoring my brother?"

He shoved the doctor away. The doctor fell back against the wall. He made no attempt to resist: it must have hurt but the noise of pain he made was muffled and choked. He sat against the wall looking up at the wiseguy, and said nothing. The doctor was a slave.

Henry stood still, clutching Jimmy to him. He couldn't figure what to do, but he needed to take Jimmy home. The doctor - the slave - was ignoring him now. So he just left.

He felt weird about that, all the way home. Mom and Dad always said, don't get involved with how other people treat their slaves, just walk away. But the doctor had helped Jimmy, twice over now.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Bill was beyond pissed into a whole new territory. The feds with their crap about this brilliant doctor who could diagnose Joey. The whole hospital staff - the blond kid, the other junior doctors, they must have known: all about this collared piece of property, this animal, sitting on the floor bleeding from his nose and staring up at him with big blue eyes.

Bill wanted to hit him again. He waited for the man to get up, but he just stayed sitting there. After a minute - the kid who was there with his kid had left - the slave said "Is this some kind of sexual come-on? Because I'm supposed to report that."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"But if you just wanted to knock me down, I don't think I have to report that. So long as you're not getting off on it."

"Your people insulted my brother!" Bill snarled. "And the feds insulted me, putting a slave in charge of this case."

The slave lifted his hand to his face, touched his nose, looked at his hand. "Okay. Earlier today, your brother had an MRI. The hospital used a really expensive piece of equipment to find out what's wrong with him. Do you feel insulted?"

Bill shook his head. He was still angry, but it was foaming out into bewilderment. This was not how slaves reacted, in all his experience of them.

"I'm a really expensive piece of equipment the hospital is using. You don't need to feel insulted by that. What did my people do to your brother, put romano in the parmesan cheese shaker again?

"Said he was a crackhead or a bottom or something."

"Those idiots. How many times am I going to have to send them through sensitivity training? Nobody's saying he s a bottom, that would be really, really bad. So let's put a nice, friendly spin on it. Let's go with: he got raped in prison. I saw the jailhouse tats, put it together with the blood tests..."

"There were rumors, but Joey never said anything about..." Bill shut up. There had been rumors. Bill hadn't asked Joey. Bill had just made real clear that no one was going to repeat those rumors. "If people find out he s being treated for Hep-C? Feds get that chart, someone says something to somebody, word'll get out. And then Joey s manhood, his rep is destroyed."

The slave was looking up at him with a kind of cynical twist to his mouth. "You're worried about how his coworkers will react in the Walmart in Des Moines."

"He's not going into Witness Protection, I won't let that happen." Bill was not in the habit of running his mouth off. Not to slaves, not to anyone. He eyed the slave, who was struggling to get to his feet: making heavy weather of it, but not whining or complaining. "How'd a guy like you end up a slave?" The cane the doctor used was balanced against the exam table. He passed it to the slave, who accepted it without thanks, but said, breathlessly,

"Listen, I don't know if you know about this, but mob businesses sometimes keep two sets of books."

"One legit, one not," Bill said, noncommittally.

"Exactly," the slave said, and gave Bill a shit-eating grin.

"You jerking my chain?"

"Just because you jerked mine?" The doctor shrugged. He was on his feet, his weight resting on his cane. "Hey. Doctors are busy, sometimes they forget to write things down, it happens all the time."

Bill looked him over. The slave - the doctor - wasn't even acting scared of Bill. He'd been knocked down and he was trembling with physical reaction, but he wasn't fearful or apologetic. He wasn't offering this because he was scared of Bill, and it wouldn't do him any good with the feds.

"Thanks," Bill said, after a minute's thought. He turned to go. "Oh, and whatever you're not giving him for whatever he doesn t have, is that going to fix him?"

"I doubt it," the doctor said finally.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson glanced out of his window and saw Greg on his own balcony, leaning on the wall. His hours in the evening clinic were done: he ought to have been asleep.

Wilson opened the door on to his own balcony and wandered out. Greg glanced in his direction, but didn't move. He looked down at the courtyard below his balcony.

"You know what Cuddy has been locked in with Vogler about all day today, and yesterday?"

Wilson hadn't meant to begin with that: the silvery disk hanging from the dark collar caught his eye.

Greg shrugged. "Floor polish costs through the roof?"

"You. Her secretary's been to the photocopier all day with your records. It's all they're looking at in there."

Greg looked at him and looked away. "I'm valuable," he said, almost soundlessly. His hand went to the silver disk.

"But are you cost-effective?"

Greg shrugged. "I'm a hospital asset. I do what I'm told."

"You were told to release that mobster to the feds."

"He was still sick."

"His brother tried to bribe you."

"Did he?" Greg looked uninterested. "So the hospital got an extra shot of cash."

"The hospital got a perfectly restored '65 Corvette. Left in a handicapped parking space. With a note saying it was a gift from the Arnello brothers."

"Really?" Greg turned to face Wilson. He was smiling, really amused. "No wonder - " He caught himself. "Well, they're gangsters, but they're thoughtful, too."

"The hospital couldn't keep it: it was graft."

"No," Greg said. He sounded purely shocked, but his grin belied it: pure amusement. "Graft would have been if I'd said I would only make it better if he slipped me a couple of bucks. A payoff for something I'm not supposed to do. If I'd asked for the payoff, which I didn't, I would have done the bad thing anyway. So it's totally legit."

"Right," Wilson said. "But can you prove you didn't ask for it?"

Greg's smile faded. Wilson hated to see it go. Greg turned away and looked out across the hospital grounds, to the road beyond. "Why would I have asked for something I can't use? What the hell use is a car to me? Bill Arnello didn't even know I'm a slave till about two hours ago. If Joey figured it out, he didn't tell Bill."

"What did he do when he found out?"

Greg hunched his shoulders and bent over the balcony. "He didn't fuck me or feel me up. So I don't have to report it."

"Right, because it doesn't matter what mood Vogler's in when he decides whether to keep you or sell you."

Greg didn't look at Wilson. "One of my team is talking to Vogler."

"Cameron?"

"Chase, I think. He has daddy issues."

"So you've been trying to keep your nose clean?"

"This is a no-win situation," Greg said, suddenly clear, completely audible. "Whether I cure this guy and make his brother mad at me, or I don't cure this guy and make the feds mad at me. But I've heard Cuddy _ad nauseum_ on how owning Doctor House is good for this hospital. Profitable in all sorts of tangible ways. She won't let Vogler sell me."

"What if she doesn't have a choice?"

Greg's head swung round and he looked at Wilson, his face closed off. "Then I'm screwed," he said, and his voice had gone quiet again. "Don't you have a wife or something to go home to?"

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Joey's liver was failing. Bill didn't need blondie doctor to tell him this was bad. He hadn't seen the slave all day, and even though he was a slave - cattle - he was the brains of the team.

Blondie doctor, acting more respectful after he'd been slapped, explained how they were going to run Joey's blood through a pig, so that the pig's liver would get the poisons in Joey: the pig would die, but Joey would live.

"And this is going to make him better?" Bill said, wondering. This had to be the smart guy's idea.

"No, just buys us some time to figure out what's poisoning your brother."

"Like you do this all the time?"

Blondie looked happy. "Oh, we've basically got a barn in the basement."

"Whose idea was this?"

"Doctor House," blondie said.

"Where is he?" Bill asked.

"Oh, he's around," blondie said.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Doctor House was in the clinic. Foreman was testing for toxins in the lab: Cameron was supposed to be helping.

"Cross off hemlock," Cameron said.

That was helpful. "You thought he was being poisoned by hemlock? Doctor Euripides tell you to check for that?"

Cameron responded blandly "It grows wild by the highways out here."

That made it possible, not plausible. Foreman was still working his way through the list of probable toxins, and it was a long list.

"How much do you like Greg?" Foreman asked, meanly amused.

Cameron tried not to react. "Chase has a big mouth."

"Yeah. He's probably the one ratting Greg out to Vogler."

"I don't think he would - "

Foreman didn't want to talk about that. He was annoyed at himself for caring. Greg was a slave, the property of the hospital, and he was allowed to act like "Doctor House" only inside the Diagnostics department. But he'd been right. Even if he was a slave. His work as a slave was to be right about patients when everyone else was wrong, and Vogler had disrespected that.

Vogler was Chairman of the Board, and Greg was a slave, and Chase was Vogler's employee. That should be enough.

Foreman repressed his annoyance and let his amusement show. "Does it hurt when you're with Greg? Little pain in the tummy, but it sort of feels good, too?"

"I don't have the right to show interest in someone?" Cameron asked crisply.

"You absolutely do," Foreman said, "and I absolutely have the right to humiliate you for it."

The door opened; it was House. Foreman glanced up. Cameron appeared unmoved.

"Anything?" House asked.

"White blood count's low; probably a result of the illness, nothing to connect to the liver," Foreman reported.

"Is he a smoker?"

"Let me check," Cameron said. She began to page through the medical history.

House picked up the chest x-ray, and lifted it up against the light. "Early signs of emphysema. He's been smoking at least a dozen years."

"Eighteen," Cameron said. "You got that from the white count?" She sounded impressed.

"No, got that from the chest x-ray. White count just tells me he's quitting." House limped to stand behind Cameron, tall enough to look over her shoulder at the medical records. Foreman looked sideways at her, at the expression on her face. "Two weeks ago," Cameron said hastily.

House left again. He didn't bother with any social niceties. He didn't have to: he could get them fired. Of course once he fired one of the Diagnostic fellows, they were free to treat him as they would any other slave. Foreman met Cameron's eyes. "How's your tummy?"

Cameron looked annoyed. "Flat and taut."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The hospital had returned the Corvette. They were polite enough about it: the implication was that accepting such a donation for treating a specific patient would imply something inethical. The message was that Bill Arnello was welcome to donate it to a charity fundraiser the hospital was planning in a few months time. They had courteously not mentioned that Bill had tried to give the car to a slave - a piece of hospital equipment, as "Doctor House" had said.

Joey was fastened to the pig by tubes for hours. The pig looked worse and worse: Joey looked about the same. When they finally removed the animal, it looked near-dead: Bill didn't ask. Meat-packing had never been Arnello Family business.

The hospital room was quiet. Bill had checked it was OK for him to have his cellphone switched on. The Family were leaving him alone, but there could be emergencies.

Joey looked as if he were sleeping: then his eyes blinked open and he looked awake.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Bill said. "You feeling better?"

"Famished," Joey said, grinning.

Bill picked up the meals card some staffer had left in the room. "I think they've got fish sticks on the menu."

"Makes me miss prison," Joey said, and just like that, they were okay again. Brothers. Like they always had been. Bill grinned back at him.

"Fuck that shit," Bill said. "We got two feds outside the door: I'll give them a few bucks to get you some real food."

One of the feds had gone for coffee. It cost Bill three thousand bucks for the other one to keep quiet about Joey waking up, just for an hour, and to go buy a pasta dinner from the nearest good restaurant, boxed up with silverware so Joey could eat it right.

The fed brought steak and potatoes again. Claimed there was nowhere nearby that served pasta at this time of day. Joey ate with enthusiasm. But within ten minutes, he was asleep again, but not asleep. Blondie confirmed it: Joey had slipped back into a coma.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Chase went into the Diagnostics conference room with Vogler's hand still heavy and reassuring on his shoulder. He was doing the right thing. Vogler had a right to know what was going on inside Diagnostics. That mistake Chase had made had turned out to be really trivial.

House stood before the whiteboard, leaning on his cane. The word estrogen had been crossed off. House was staring at it. He said, as if to himself, "Most types of coma you just don't snap out of."

"He s not snapping out of this one," Chase said. House turned to look at him, consideringly. "He s not improving. You crossed out estrogen, you ve got an explanation?"

"Yes, I have," House said after a moment. "A very simple one."

"And?" Chase asked, waiting.

House was still looking at him as if Chase were an x-ray transparency. "It's private."

It was almost a relief. "You think I'm the one running to Vogler."

"You're currently top of the list," House said briefly, almost as if uninterested. "Toxic comas, person's away from the cause long enough... and they recover."

"The feds checked for poisons, we checked for poisons." Chase decided it was simpler to let House know he couldn't prove anything. "I didn't do it."

House's gaze didn't change. "It's not a poison, then."

"An allergy," Chase said, automatically. "Did you hear me? I didn't talk to Vogler." And House couldn't prove anything else. Vogler had told him he would say the information about ipecac had come from a nurse.

"How about a food sensitivity?" House said thoughtfully.

That was ridiculous. "All of his food is strictly controlled. There's no correlation between his meals and his condition. He had steak and potatoes before the first coma, and the hospital served fish sticks before the second one."

House went on looking at Chase through all of that. His gaze was assessing, stripping. He didn't even bother to respond.

Chase didn't mean House any harm. He just wanted to keep his job. For that, Vogler needed a source to tell him how valuable House was. Chase had worked as a Diagnostics fellow for two years, House must know there was no malice or illwill towards him. "You can trust me," Chase assured him.

House's mouth twisted a little. "Problem is, if I can't trust you, I can't trust your statement that I can trust you. But thanks anyway, you've been a big help."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Blondie was back. He didn't use the Hepatitis word, so Bill was listening to him. He was using lots of long words as if he hoped Bill would just give up and nod. "We can t give him Interferon, so we're using a non-nucleoside allosteric inhibitor."

"Which will do what?"

"Change the virus, so it's genetically something else."

"Was this Doctor House's idea?"

The setup was more complicated. Blondie was busy putting it together. He didn't answer the question. He said "We're going to put the medicine here. We don't want it to burn his veins when it goes in."

Bill wondered if he should hit blondie again. Or if he should go hit someone else. He didn't want to leave Joey alone. Joey was lying there almost like a corpse.  
"You have no idea if it will work."

Blondie gave him a look. "It's shown promise in testing."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

This time, as Jimmy's whistling breath shook his small body, Henry would rather have asked for a different doctor. But he expected to get the same answer. He just ducked his head down and hoped to be sent somewhere other than the treatment room where he had seen the tall slave was working.

No luck with that. The tall slave didn't say anything and didn't look hurt. He was wearing another rolltop, but Henry could see the line where the collar was.

Jimmy was screaming as the slave fished in his nose with tweezers. He didn't seem to be finding anything. There shouldn't be anything: Henry hadn't let him play with any of the toys small enough to go up his nose. He'd taken all the firefighters off the fire truck and the soldiers out of the fort and the toy train set was unpopulated.

"Maybe there s nothing up there, I watched him like a hawk."

"Pretty sure you didn't," the slave said calmly.

"I didn't let him play with any more little toys."

"Thus forcing him to shove a big one up there," the slave said. Jimmy was shaking his head and crying. The slave looked him in the eye. "Stop or I snap your nose off!"

Jimmy shut up. Henry looked down at him, astonished. Out of Jimmy's nose, the familiar red fire truck appeared: it looked too big to have fit up there even when it was coming out. Henry hadn't noticed it was gone, when Jimmy started crying again.

He and the slave both looked at the fire truck. The slave stood up, putting it down on the shelf. Henry saw that Mr Blue and the missing firefighter were still there: Henry had forgotten to pick them up.

Jimmy really was making a habit of doing this. "He's not too smart," Henry said apologetically.

"Genetics is a powerful force," the slave said. He sounded thoughtful. He was looking at the toys on the shelf. "On the other hand, maybe he's smarter than you think." He took down a tool that Henry hadn't seen before, a metal thing that looked dangerous.

"What s going on?" Henry asked.

"Just give me a second," the slave said. "Always wanted to use one of these." He seemed to press a button. A pair of scissors flew down the counter and stuck to the metal thing. "Tilt his head back."

Henry hugged Jimmy closer. "I don't know," he said uncertainly.

"Just tilt his head back."

The slave's voice was strangely reassuring. Henry obeyed. Jimmy's head felt very small and vulnerable under his hand.

The slave touched the metal thing to the opening of Jimmy's nose, and switched it on. There was an odd noise and Jimmy jerked in Henry's arms. Then Skimbleshanks was sticking to the metal thing. Skimbleshanks was shiny metal and belonged to Mom: sometimes, not often, Henry had been allowed to add him to the train set. Skimbleshanks lived on the shelf over Mom and Dad's bed. Jimmy had been in there three days ago, but Henry had thought he had got him out again before Jimmy actually got into anything.

"Nice grasp of concepts, relationships," the slave said. "Very smart, very cool. First the policeman, then the fireman, then the fire truck. Your brother was sending in teams to save the cat."

"Wow," Henry said. He stared at the slave. Jimmy was relaxed and comfortable in his arms. Mom and Dad would be back in three days, and everything would be OK. "Thank you. I wish Dad - " He was going to say, I wish Dad owned you, but the slave wasn't listening to him.

"Sometimes the simplest answer," the slave said, and his voice trailed off. He put Skimbleshanks down next to Mr Blue and the firefighter and the fire truck, and walked out.

This time Henry knew not to expect him back. He picked up the three toys and Mom's cat, and put them into his jacket pocket. He'd clean them up when he and Jimmy got home.

"Hey Jimmy, how about ice cream before we get on the bus?"

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The slave doctor was arguing with the fed who'd proved amenable to Joey getting a decent meal. Bill stood and watched them: the fed didn't seem to know the doc was a slave.

"You're talking about poison," the slave said, with peculiar intensity. "I'm talking about payoff. Graft."

Bill interrupted. "Leave him alone." Taking three grand from Bill would get that guy into trouble, and Bill wasn't in favor of that: especially when a guy hadn't really done anything wrong. First payoff should be good payoff.

"You paid the Marshall off," the slave said.

"I didn t pay him to poison my brother," Bill said.

"No, it just worked out that way," the slave said.

"I gave the guy some money to get him some decent food."

"Better than fish sticks? I'm thinking steak."

Bill was surprised. "We asked for pasta. Those stupid feds could care less "

The slave interrupted. "He had steak before both comas. Your brother has Ornithine Transcarbamylase Deficiency. You want me to write it down?" Bill stared, stunned.

"Good," the slave said, "because it takes a while. OTD is genetic, it can present at any time, when the patient eats a large amount of protein, especially if he's not used to it."

"That's it?" Bill was really stunned, grasping at relief. Joey had been in a coma twice, woken up once. "He stays off the red meat and he s going to be fine?" Joey could eat pasta for the rest of his life, that was no hardship.

"Yes," the slave said. "If I'm right, and we stop the current treatment, he gets better." He paused. "If we stop the current treatment and I'm wrong, he dies."

Relief was slipping away, again. "Why would you be wrong?"

"His estrogen level. OTD doesn t explain his estrogen level. But I have a theory. There is one chemical that, if ingested, can cause a person s estrogen level to increase dramatically." The slave sat down. There was a row of comfortable chairs for free people to wait in. Bill stared, angered and confused. A slave shouldn't sit down like that. But this slave did nothing like he should.

"It's called estrogen."

That was a feminizing chemical. A hormone. People took it deliberately when they were males who wanted to be women. It would take a couple of years but Bill could deal with Joey as his sister. And anyone who couldn't handle that would be hearing from the Arnello Family.

"Joey's taking estrogen? Joey's transgender?"

"No, nothing like that," the slave said. "It s called 'Male Flame'. It's probably more consumer friendly in the original Chinese. It's an herbal aphrodisiac marketed to male bottomers."

"Oh, here we go," Bill said, disgusted.

"And sold on the same website that sells the stop-smoking lozenges Joey was taking. Guess what's in 'Male Flame'? Starts with an 'e'".

Bill stared. He wouldn't have believed the slave would say anything as explicit to him after what happened to Doctor Blondie. "You want to get hit, too?"

"That would be quite a trick," the slave said, unafraid. "'He slapped me so hard his brother turned Top'. Joey s a big-time mobster. Guys like that don t get raped in prison. They get gifts, they get food, drugs, cigarettes, cable TV..."

Bill sat down next to the slave. "Joey is not a bottom."

"Well, maybe not a bottom," the slave said. "but certainly not impenetrable. You, on the other hand, hitting a doctor, even if it was only Chase... and asking another one to keep his chart fresh and bottom-free. Well, that s a bit of an overreaction, wouldn t you say? It's almost like you re scared that it might be true."

"You're wrong," Bill said flatly. He was never going to believe Joey could be a bottom.

"Okay," the slave said. "Then don't stop the treatment." He stood up. He looked down at Bill. "But if you're wrong, he dies."

Bill walked away in the opposite direction. He walked down corridors without seeing them. His cellphone was silent. He could've used a distraction. What if Joey did like to take it up the ass? He'd still be Joey. He'd still be a made man. But he'd have to fight more, and so would Bill, because why would any guy that could fight want to have ... that done to him?

But he'd still be Joey.

"Okay," Bill said, out loud. He walked back. It seemed longer. He got to the IC unit with the glass wall. The slave doc was standing looking through it, at Joey, hooked up to the apparatus delivering that stuff that Blondie had wanted, that the slave doc hadn't. "Okay," he said to the slave doc, who nodded. Blondie leaned over the apparatus, stopping it and detaching it from Joey. "He never said anything to me about it, not once."

The slave doctor shrugged. "Maybe he didn't find it that easy to talk to you about something only slaves are supposed to get." Bill looked at him, surprised. The slave doctor went on looking at Joey. "Maybe he just got tired of putting up a front. That's what I love about you mob guys: so tolerant of others, so accepting. Only way he was coming out was way, way out. Lose the tattoos, change his name, move to another town... how's a guy like him going to do that? Witness protection. It s not just for witnesses any more."

Blondie came out of the IC unit. "You can go in now, sit with him if you want."

Bill turned and walked away. Joey. If he woke up, when he woke up... he'd be a guy who couldn't eat steak dinners. A guy who'd been taking an aphrodisiac marketed at bottomers. If he didn't wake up... Bill didn't have a brother any more.

It was hours later before the black doctor and the young woman - Blondie wasn't there - tracked Bill down to the waiting area at the other end of the hospital to let him know Joey was awake and asking for Bill.. The slave wasn't around. Bill never saw him again.

"You look like crap," Joey said. "That's a joke, see. I'm sick, I said you look like crap "

"You have no idea what I just went through out there," Bill said. He had a hot feeling building up inside of his head and his heart, like he was going to cry. "You kept getting worse, and Doctor House kept saying all this crap. If I think you re normal, then he's going to keep giving you the medicine, and if you weren't..."

"Weren't what?" Joey looked sharply at Bill, who sat down. Joey's face had a sharp, self-protective look. "Normal?"

"Yeah." Bill stared at Joey, miraculously awake. "He said you were a fag, a bottom. Witness protection, that s your big chance to be one."

"You believe him?" Joey asked, sharply.

"I don't know what to believe. He makes all these assumptions, he talks you into them... You were sick. I had to make a decision. I thought you were gonna die."

"You believed him." Joey sat up. "He stopped the medicine. Here I am." He paused, looking at Bill. "I wanted to talk to you about this - "

"There's nothing to talk about," Bill said, taking on his Arnallo lawyer role. "You, uh, ordered some Chinese internet health crap, they sent the wrong pills, you took 'em." That would be the story for the Family.

"Yeah, yeah, that, uh, that must be it." Joey lay down. He looked up at the ceiling. Bill walked over to look down into his face.

"You want to testify, go ahead. I told the doc, he said it's okay."

"I don't expect you to understand " Joey said.

"I don't. All I need to know is you re my brother, Joey. If you think this thing, whatever, is going to make you happy, I think you should do it. You should."

Joey reached out and grabbed Bill's hand. He had hard, gun-calloused hands, bigger than Bill's. His hand wrapped round Bill's, and Bill clutched him back. He was going to miss Joey, but Joey would still be his brother.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson found Greg sitting by himself in his office. "So, Cuddy stood up for you?" The two-day meeting with Vogler was done, and there had been no announcements about reassigning the Diagnostics fellows or selling off the Diagnostics slave.

"Everything's about profits," Greg said.

"Yeah, that's real new. But Cuddy stood up for you. About the stuff - "

"I can't have stuff," Greg said.

"I have this carton of stuff," Wilson said. "I'm keeping it in the bottom drawer of the second filing cabinet. The one that isn't locked. So is that okay?"

Greg nodded. He didn't look grateful. "To a point."

"What point?"

"I'll be doing six more clinic hours a month. So will two of them." Greg's wave took in the glass box of the Diagnostics conference room, but Wilson supposed he meant the fellows.

"Why only two?"

"Because one of them's gone. Cuddy says I have to fire somebody. By the way, I don't think that means you get a new Oncology fellow." Greg lifted his chin. He wasn't wearing a rolltop, and the silver tag dangled against his collarbone. "That's what you wanted when you first started talking to me, isn't it? And now you don't even get to screw me. So you can quit hanging out with the talking MRI machine, right?"

He waited for Wilson to react. Wilson stared at him, aghast. Somehow, he hadn't thought he'd been so transparent.

"Good night," Greg said.

_-tbc-_

_I hoped to post C15 this past weekend, but RL caught up with me and kicked me in the nads. C16 WILL be posted this Friday. Promise._


	16. 116 Heavy

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. (This is the third story in the Vogler arc. A bit shorter than the last!)_

**1.16 Heavy**

Cameron was looking for House. A referral had come in from Doctor Linkowitz, and House should have been in the clinic, but he wasn't: the nurses said he'd gone for an interview with Doctor Cuddy, but Cuddy's office was empty.

Cameron got into the elevator to go up to the Diagnostics floor. If House wasn't in the clinic or Cuddy's office that was the only place he should be.

The door opened. Doctor Cuddy was standing with House just outside the doors.

"Like you don't," Cameron heard him say to Cuddy.

Cameron walked out of the elevator. "You have a week. Get it done," Cuddy said, and turned away.

House walked into the elevator. Cameron sighed and followed him. "We have a referral from Doctor Linkowitz."

House shrugged. He was on his way back down to the clinic: he was wearing one of his rolltops. "Don't know him."

"He knows you." Linkowitz had been almost tearfully relieved to find someone on House's staff would talk to him.

"What's the problem?" House asked, momentarily curious.

"Heart attack."

An odd smirk appeared and vanished on House's mouth. "Definitely don't know him."

Cameron moved in with the cherry on the cake: "The patient's ten."

House looked at her and plucked the folder out of her hands. He flipped through it. The elevator stopped on the ground floor, and House handed her the folder. "Get the others."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The kid was obese. Chase had seen too many obese kids since he started working in the US, and he had come to hate them. It wasn't fair: he ought to hate their schools that reserved sports for the excellent few and let everyone else be a spectator and their parents who kept their kids at home and didn't let them walk or bike anywhere and their American cane-syrup diet, but that was how he felt: he knew what to blame, but the obese kids were just disgusting.

The kid was obese, and eating her way into the Guinness Book of Records as World's Youngest Heart Attack Victim, and House was running a differential diagnosis to get out of clinic duty.

"Oh, and one more thing," House said, standing by the whiteboard. "I've been told that I've got to get rid of one of you guys by the end of the week. New sheriff, belt tightening, you know how it goes. Okay, carry on." He walked out of the conference room, evidently on his way back to the clinic. He hadn't taken off the rolltop.

There was a moment's silence as the door closed behind House. Chase let out his breath silently. He was Vogler's informant. Vogler wouldn't let House fire him. The angio hadn't been a big deal. House couldn't be sure about the ipecac or Chase keeping Vogler up to speed about the Witness Protection patient. And Vogler would protect Chase.

Foreman sighed. "It s some kind of game, House s own version of 'Punk'd'."

"It's not House, it's Vogler," Cameron said definitely. "We can't let it get to us, we ve got to stick together."

"Why?" Chase asked, genuinely bewildered. "Stick together" would be the last thing he'd have advised, even before he went to Vogler.

"What are you suggesting, we start slashing each other's throats?" Cameron asked.

"I m suggesting it's a zero-sum game. Your loss is my win. That's not conducive to team play."

Foreman was looking at him with open disgust, Chase realized suddenly. More expression than he'd ever seen on Foreman's face before. As he noticed, Foreman's face locked down, and he said levelly, "Which is what House seems to want. I'm with Cameron. May be a bad strategy, but I don't want to give House his satisfaction. Come on, sick kid, remember?"

_Fat kid._ Chase trailed after them, not saying it.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Cameron hadn't done her clinic hours yet this week. She often tried to avoid the clinic when House was there, but they were waiting on results for Jessica, and the clinic scheduler was used to fitting the Diagnostics fellows into the gaps in the schedule.

She was standing sorting through folders when she heard the Chairman of the Board say behind her "What's the status on House?"

Cuddy answered, speaking a bit more quietly, "He asked for time to complete performance reviews on everyone in his department."

"And you told him no and gave him how long?" Vogler asked, curiously. He had a smooth, deep voice. Cameron found it unpleasant.

"A week. He'll do it," Cuddy said.

House did performance reviews, annually, in a perfunctory, fill-in-the-forms way. A previous fellow, Anderson, had found this profoundly annoying: Chase said he kind of liked it. Cameron had been working for House for only a few weeks then, and House hadn't bothered even with the most perfunctory review for her. It wasn't like she didn't know exactly what House thought of her work, every day, every week.

"Greg's never done what he's told. Don't see why he's going to start now." Cuddy didn't reply, and Cameron kept turning over the folders. She hoped they didn't realize she had heard. She heard heavy footsteps behind her, and realized it would look too obvious now not to turn.

"Hi! Edward Vogler." He was even taller than House, Cameron realized, and bigger: he had an imposing presence that had nothing to do with inches. "Is Greg claiming that I'm forcing him to get rid of one of you? I assume his goal is to stir up antagonism toward me."

That was startling. Cameron tried not to show it. "And your goal is?"

"I am forcing him," Vogler said. "I'll do whatever I can to ease the transition for whoever he chooses." He gave her a look Cameron was used to: not over the line, not harassment, just a look that heterosexually-orientated men _gave _her, most of the time, that said _Ask me for something_. Cameron had tried not to use it once she realized why it was happening. But it meant she could risk saying something a bit out of line.

"If you're feeling guilty about your decision, there is an easy solution."

"I don't feel guilty." Vogler was still giving her _the look_.

"Then why approach me and tell me all this?" She thought it probably was as simple as _you're there and I can_. And the assumption, that went right along with _the look_, that someone as pretty as Cameron had to be harmless.

"I don't feel guilty, that doesn't mean I don't feel bad. I'm rich, but I'm still human." Vogler smiled, and unexpectedly, Cameron felt his charm. She still didn't like him, but she wanted to. "I just wanted you to know that if there's anything I can do for you, my door's open."

"Thank you," Cameron said. She had already picked out the clinic folders she was going to deal with. She walked away before she could say anything else. Behind her, she heard Cuddy say "You looking for info? Thought you already had Greg all figured out?"

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Jessica seemed like a good, smart kid: depressed and with a massive case of low self-esteem, peer-induced, about her weight. Foreman liked her.

"Obesity isn't something you just grow out of," Chase said.

Foreman was trying to ignore him, but this wasn't helping. "Take it you ve never seen a baby?" He had his own doubts about whether this much weight was something that would change in adolescence, but he _had_ seen fat kids get a lot thinner and fitter if they went into the growth-spurt years with determination to get fit and stay fit. Telling a fat kid she'd always be fat wasn't going to get her to work out, at school or the gym or anywhere.

"She's not a baby, she's ten!"

"And you figure making her feel like crap would do her a world of good?" If Chase said this kind of thing around Jessica, Foreman was going to punch him in the mouth. Or repeat it to Jessica's mom and make _sure_ Chase was the one who got fired.

"Yeah, if it gets her off the couch!"

"I'm sure she's already under enough pressure," Cameron said nicely.

"Not from mummy," Chase said nastily.

"Everything in society tells us we have to be thin to be successful," Cameron said.

"No, society tells you you have to be thin to be attractive. And guess what, that's what attractive means: that society likes looking at you."

Foreman figured that for a pretty boy who'd never figured out how much easier being the pretty son of a rich guy had made his life.

"I think we should be telling our kids it's fine as long as they re healthy," Cameron decreed. Foreman figured she'd never been around kids. She wasn't much good with the pediatric patients.

"All right," Chase said. "You weigh 90 pounds because it makes you healthier?"

Chase finally had a point, but Foreman wasn't about to acknowledge it. Right now he liked Cameron better than Chase.

"Forget it. He's just cranky because he's the one who's going to get the axe." And the look on Chase's face when Foreman said that was something Foreman would have paid for.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson had decided he was going to continue buying food and coffee for Greg until Vogler told him explicitly not to: it was not a sexual come-on. The carton with Greg's contraband was still in the lower drawer of his filing cabinet.

So he bought two sandwiches, and a bag of chilli-lemon flavor chips, and two coffees, and had the cafeteria bag them. Greg should be done with his clinic hours for the morning.

Greg was sitting in the Diagnostics box, alone, staring at the white board. Wilson came in and unpacked the bag on the table. Greg looked at the food, and turned his attention back to the whiteboard.

"So, any thoughts?

"On what?" Greg didn't look at Wilson. He was still wearing the rolltop he wore for clinic work. "Sharon s plan for Gaza?"

"Who you're going to let go."

Greg picked up one of the sandwiches, and bit into it. "I'm thinking I can convince Vogler it would be more cost-efficient to let me keep all of them."

Wilson picked up his own sandwich. "Don't take Vogler on."

"He likes games," Greg said, with bravado. He was clean-shaven, which meant he'd taken the time to get to the hospital's groomer that day. He was wearing clothing that made him look more like a doctor than a slave. He was trying to be obedient. "And he's not going to sell me."

Wilson opened the bag of chips and pushed it at Greg. "Just keep your head down, that s all I m saying. You know how good you have it here."

"Yeah," Greg said. His eyes flickered across Wilson's face. "I'm curious about what you're doing here. Want to ask me how Vogler's dick tastes?" He stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth, and said through them "You can extrapolate from how his ass tastes, Doctor Wilson."

Wilson blinked. He picked up his coffee and his sandwich. "Okay, we'll discuss this later."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Someone had fetched House a sandwich and coffee lunch. The remains were on the table. Cameron wondered if she should bring House food. They reported what had happened while they were running the next series of tests on Jessica, and between Chase and Foreman House probably got a pretty good picture of it, but he only said evenly "Not hypoglycemia, then. What else could cause uncontrollable rage in a ten-year-old?" House got up and went to the whiteboard.

Foreman said "Nothing that could also cause a heart attack."

"I assume I don t have to point out that now would be an extremely good time for one of you to distinguish yourself with a brilliant idea." House wasn't smiling.

Chase said hastily "A hypercoaguable state could cause a blood clot. Blood clots can cause a heart attack."

"More likely to cause a stroke, not the psychosis," Cameron pointed out.

"No, you re wrong," Chase contradicted. "If the clot made it to the amicdal area of the brain, it might cause uncontrollable rage."

That was ridiculous, and Cameron said so, and Chase suggested she might have a fat embolus, which would only make sense if Jessica had had liposuction, which was really absurd: Chase tried to quibble, but House cut him off.

"She hasn't had liposuction."

"Thank you." Cameron said.

"But what about some other ridiculous obesity treatment?" House asked.

Diet pills would have shown up on a tox screen, and anyway Jessica's mom wouldn't have given her weight loss drugs.

"Yeah," Chase said sarcastically, "she thinks her daughter's perfect just the way she is."

"She's lying," House said flatly. "Okay, Chase, Cameron, heparin and warfarin to prevent further clotting. Foreman, find those pills. Doctor Cameron, a word. You can join Chase for sparring practice later."

He was still standing by the whiteboard. Cameron came closer. There was something different about the line of his collar under his rolltop. Why was he still wearing his rolltop?

"Why are you angry?" House asked.

"I'm not angry," Cameron denied.

"Are you angry because you think I'm going to fire you?"

"Vogler thinks you're going to fire me," Cameron spat out. And with that she could believe it, and she was sad instead of angry.

House was staring at her assessingly. "That's interesting. You said you weren t angry. Who would you fire?"

"No one."

"Not an option."

"If all three of us took a paycut and put in a few more hours we could all stay for the same amount of money."

"Figures you'd try and come up with a solution where no one gets hurt. The problem is, the world doesn t work that way just because you want it to."

"Figures you d stall and refuse to deal with the issue." Cameron thought about it. It probably was going to be her who was fired. Chase was better at ass-kissing, and Foreman was better at diagnostics. She could accept that. "Problem is, the world doesn t go away just because you want it to." She didn't wait to see how House might react to that. She went out to find Chase and work on the girl who might be her last patient in Diagnostics.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Cuddy was discussing MRI costs with Vogler when Greg knocked and came in. He stood there politely.

"Did you make a decision?" Cuddy asked.

"He's not going to fire anybody," Vogler said.

"Yes. I m going to cut the pay of all three fellows and we'll all do two extra hours in the clinic per week, which is the equivalent of 21% across the board. That will allow you to keep us all for the same amount of money. I believe that's what you call 'win-win'." Greg presented this plan sounding respectful, it was reasonable, and Cuddy thought the figures worked. And she didn't want to lose a Diagnostics fellow while Greg was still training them.

"All right," Cuddy said, relieved, "if you can "

"No." Vogler spoke with decision.

"If he can work it so we can keep the current staff for the same amount of money, what difference does it make?"

Greg leaned on his cane. He was still wearing the rolltop he wore around patients, Cuddy noticed. Clinic duty should have been over an hour or two ago.

"It's not about the money," Greg said.

"This is not a negotiation, it never was. I own you, Greg. You need to know that whatever I ask you to do, no matter how distasteful you find it, you ll do it." Vogler paused. "Why are you concealing your collar?"

"He's required to when he's around patients," Cuddy said quickly.

"He isn't seeing patients till evening clinic," Vogler said. "It's two in the afternoon."

Greg leaned his cane against the door behind him. He peeled the rolltop off. His collar showed clear against his throat, with the silver tag Vogler had clipped on to it.

"I think Doctor Cuddy gave you a week," Vogler said, in his comfortable, solid voice. "Run along, Greg." He smiled. "In your own way."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Skin necrosis on a ten-year-old.

They all got back to the Diagnostics box at about the same time: House was sitting by himself, wearing his usual work clothes, staring at the white board. He had already added SKIN NECROSIS to the list of symptoms. Foreman came to halt right inside the door: only for a moment, but it was obvious enough that Chase knew Foreman had seen something about House, and a moment later Chase saw it too:

Someone had put a tag on their boss. A named tag, though they weren't close enough to read the name. Probably a sexual-exclusivity tag.

Chase stood there staring at it, at Greg - the _slave_ - and heard a small noise from beside him.

Cameron was staring at Greg, her mouth and eyes wide open. She looked terribly distressed and shocked.

"Skin necrosis," House said briskly. "Differential diagnosis, people. Chase, close your mouth before someone puts something in it."

Chase fumbled for a chair and sat down. A moment later, Cameron sat. She said, in a voice she was evidently _trying _to make even. "Diet pills don't cause skin necrosis." It was probably the most professional thing Chase had ever heard her say.

He couldn't take his eyes off the tag on Greg's collar. Someone was screwing him. Who?

House's eyes looked at him, coldly. Chase struggled for something to say. "Could be something related to the pills."

"Or not," Cameron said. Her voice was still shaky.

"Or both," House said. His voice was shockingly normal. "Diet pills brought her to us, we gave her the sores."

"You think she got a staph infection from something here?" Foreman asked. He too sounded shockingly normal. He'd reacted to Greg's tag, he just wasn't showing it.

"I'm not saying the hospital gave the sores, I'm saying we did. By treating her. Warfarin-induced skin necrosis."

Chase's heart felt like it bounced inside of him. He had given the girl warfarin. On House's instructions. Which weren't written down anywhere. He hadn't even discussed them with Vogler.

"Highly unlikely." Cameron sounded very professional. "We started her on heparin before the warfarin."

"Who gave her the heparin?"

Chase tried to make his voice sound normal, not guilty. "I gave warfarin, she gave heparin."

"Sure you didn't both give her warfarin?" House asked, and Chase realized with great relief that this trended to blaming Cameron.

"Yes," Cameron said. "I did not screw up."

House was looking at Chase. "Did you actually see her prepare and administer the heparin?"

Chase hadn't. And if he had, he wouldn't say so. Zero-sum game.

"Enough said," House said.

"You were standing right there," Cameron said, staring at him.

"I was preparing my own dose," Chase defended himself. It was even true. He hadn't been watching Cameron. Not closely. Besides, Cameron was a US citizen: whatever happened to her, she wouldn't lose her work visa and be deported.

"Yeah, right," Cameron said, with sudden contempt. "There's got to be some other cause."

"None that I can think of," House said. He was looking at Cameron and Chase with the kind of cool assessing interest that wouldn't have bothered Chase, before, except... he could lose his job. And someone had _tagged_ Greg.

"...and low molecular weight heparin by subcutaneous injection, stat." Chase had missed the first half of that, staring at Greg's tag, but he supposed Greg... House... must have told them to give the girl unfractionated IV heparin as well as the injection. That would make sense if Cameron had screwed up. Oh God, he hoped Cameron had screwed up. Either Wilson had tagged Greg, it had been looking for a while as if that was going to happen, but why _now_? Or, taking possession of the hospital's most expensive slave...

Vogler had tagged Greg. Greg had Vogler's personal attention. Chase got up, drymouthed, and left the room, all three of them getting out briskly, none of them wanting to stay there with their tagged boss.

Cameron said, as soon as they were out in the hall, "Making me look bad is not going to save your job."

"You think you're incapable of making a mistake?"

Cameron stared at him. Both she and Foreman had an identical look in their eyes. "You think," Cameron said, "I am that weak that I am just going to roll over and take this?"

Greg has Vogler's tag. Chase said, "House isn't just going to protect you because you kiss his ass!"

Cameron's look didn't change. Precisely, she said "Vogler wants to know what he can do for me."

A lump was forming in Chase's throat. Vogler liked Cameron better. Foreman _was _better, Cameron was more appealling to Vogler, all Chase had was the inside information that Foreman and Cameron were unwilling to provide - and Vogler had Greg tagged.

They had forgotten to close the door. House's voice sounded just the same. "Hey! Stop worrying about your asses and start worrying about the patient's."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

There was no one in the glass-walled Diagnostics conference room, but it was mid-afternoon: Foreman walked into the room behind it, and, as he'd guessed, House was sitting in the reclining chair with his legs stretched out on the ottoman. He wasn't asleep, though his eyes were closed when Foreman walked in: he said "Not found the diet pills? You might want to broaden the search a little. And don't just ask the mom: if she hasn't mentioned it yet she's not going to - "

Foreman let out a short, exasperated breath, and House's eyes opened instantly. He didn't move, though. He sat there with his head back looking up at Foreman, his right hand pressed against his thigh, his left hand lying open on the arm of the chair.

Foreman had been about to report that he had checked through Jessica's locker at school and asked her mom and had found no evidence of any diet pills. He didn't bother, since House had obviously already deduced his report: "If you're going to fire someone, go ahead and do it, but don t treat us like lab rats, testing how long it takes us to get us at one another s throats," he said harshly.

House still didn't move, apart from his right hand, rubbing at his thigh. "So what should I do?" he asked.

"I don't give a damn what you do," Foreman said harshly.

"Yes," House said slowly. "I had noticed your complete indifference. You don't even offer a medical opinion any more. Who would you fire?"

"Not my call," Foreman said. Was House seriously trying to lay the responsibility off on to Foreman?

"I want your opinion," House asked.

Disgusted - this had to be another game - Foreman turned to go. He had to find the diet pills: if not at school, they must be at Jessica's home.

"Fine," House said. "It's you."

Foreman turned back. House had lifted his head and was still gazing at him.

"Either way," House said softly, "you're making a choice."

_You don't want to make a choice. Slave._

Foreman had been thinking about it. In a functional sense, there was an argument for it being anyone but Cameron, who had been a Diagnostics fellow for just over a year: for him, he could leave now and apply for another fellowship and claim he'd found he just couldn't get along with House, or with the situation of being expected to be supervised by a slave: Chase could probably talk Cuddy into declaring his fellowship had come to an ordinary end, and Chase's family were rich enough that he didn't have to worry about moving on to a second fellowship: he could probably get a good job at any hospital. But Cameron needed to stay with House for another year; it would look bad for her career if she left right now.

Foreman didn't want to leave. He was learning more in this fellowship that he'd learned in years of residency: he had a talent for diagnostics, and he had a fantastic opportunity to learn.

Chase...

"Chase," he said.

House looked genuinely startled. "Why - because he screwed up an angio a month ago?"

"Anyone can make a mistake," Foreman said. It had been the kind of stupid error any doctor can make once, and Chase had looked shocked enough by doing it that Foreman didn't think he was likely to ever do it again. No one died.

"Right." House's face had changed again. "It's the money. You resent it, but you re going to tell me he doesn t _need_ the job."

"He doesn't appreciate the job," Foreman said.

"He was ready to go three rounds with Cameron for it," House said.

"He wants the job." Foreman thought about zebras. "He just doesn't appreciate it." Chase liked working for Diagnostics, but Foreman had never seen him break sweat over it: Chase liked having a leisurely, do-nothing pace to his life. "There's nothing wrong with just wanting to hang out, but this is not the place to do it," Foreman told House.

House was still watching him, frowning a little. "I'm surprised."

"You thought I'd pick Cameron?" She was probably the weakest of them in diagnosing patients, but she worked hard.

"I didn't think you'd pick at all," House said, and closed his eyes again, dropping his head back against the chair.

Foreman felt as if he had been dismissed. He stood there, offended, for a long minute, until it was clear House didn't intend to re-open his eyes: Foreman left, closing the door behind him with a loud bang.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Doctor Wilson." Greg was very correct.

"You want to continue that discussion?" The more Wilson had thought about it, the crosser he'd got. He'd been _nice_ to Greg, when he didn't have to be.

"What?" Greg looked disconcerted. "No. I got Mrs Hernandez's pregnancy tests back."

"Who's Mrs Hernandez?"

"Either a woman carrying an alien baby or your newest patient."

"What?"

"She was a walk-in at the clinic. Complained of heart-burn. She claimed she wasn't pregnant, but I could see she was carrying, so I had her tested. She isn't pregnant, which means it's a very large tumor." Greg handed him the file.

"She hasn't had a scan - " Wilson looked down the patient's chart. "She hasn't had anything, except antacid for the heart-burn, and a pregnancy test. Where are you getting the tumor from?"

"It's on one of her ovaries. She's a big woman, which explains why no one noticed that extra bulge, but it's in exactly the right place for the bulge to look like a pregnancy. All of her is all yours. Which of my fellows should I fire?"

"You're asking me?"

"Chase is ratting to Vogler, Cameron says none, Foreman says Chase, Vogler says one of them has got to go."

"Foreman says Chase?"

"I guess he's not the 'rise above the fray' guy he likes to think he is. Tumor's probably benign, there would be have been other symptoms."

"We're back to talking about Mrs Hermandez again? Foreman wants you to fire Chase? Why?"

"He's scared of losing his job, just like everyone else."

"And what are you scared of?"

Greg looked at him. "I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do."

"I think I sense a hint of sarcasm there."

"Do your job," Greg said, turning away. "You can't do me. I'm tagged."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Vogler moved quietly for such a big man. Chairman of the Board didn't give him a legal right to look at patient records or give him any clinical reason to be present in treatment rooms. Jessica wasn't conscious and her mother wasn't present: but watching Vogler pick up the clipboard and casually look down at the treatment record, Foreman knew he didn't like Vogler and didn't respect him.

"She sleeping?" Vogler asked.

"As a result of the sedatives, yeah," Foreman said. "Can't let her wake up, too much pain."

"'Warfarin-induced skin necrosis'," Vogler read out loud. He glanced at Foreman. "I have no idea what that means. But it says here we gave her the warfarin, and I do know what 'induced' means... we did this?"

Vogler had tagged Greg. Foreman got it. He was planning to punish him. Fine. But it shouldn't be for medical decisions.

"At this point it s not exactly clear," Foreman said, painstakingly polite, and truthful. "You know, I should probably talk to Doctor House."

"Oh, you two need time to get your story straight," Vogler said, softly, contemptuously. A doctor, conspiring with a slave.

"He doesn t tell me what to do," Foreman said.

Greg didn't. Doctor House did. He saw it in Vogler's face: realized he would see it in the face of everyone who knew he was working for a slave.

"So you don't just blindly follow his commands. You're your own man. And yet, here you are working for a collared, tagged... piece of equipment."

Expensive piece of equipment. Foreman had heard Greg describe himself as that. But he wasn't a piece of equipment. He was a brilliant doctor. Foreman guessed he was likely to lose his fellowship - and knew he was going to regret it. He wanted to go on learning. From Diagnostics. He met Vogler's eyes, and said, painstakingly cold "I respect him."

"What exactly is it you respect? His attitude toward humanity? He thinks we're all idiots and liars. How 'bout his attitude toward you, plays with you like a cat with a ball of string - "

"What do you want?" Foreman asked.

"I want to know if you want to keep your job."

"If he chooses to let me go, I can live with that," Foreman told him.

"That's not an answer," Vogler noted.

"You offering to protect me?" Foreman asked.

"Still not an answer," Vogler noted again.

"I want my job," Foreman admitted at last.

The door opened. Vogler's eyes shifted from Foreman's face. "Doctor Chase," he said.

"Boss," Chase said.

The interview was evidently over. Vogler left. Chase was eyeing Foreman.

"What was that about?"

Foreman shrugged. "Wanted to know what warfarin is. I don t know." He hadn't even been lying. He did respect House. He didn't know what that was about.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Oh, God," Mrs Hernandez said. She was quite large, but not morbidly obese. It was surprising that a thirty-pound tumour - the largest they'd ever recorded in this hospital - could have developed with no more symptoms than heartburn. A personal record. Wilson actually wished he could say that to someone. "But it s completely benign, there s no sign of cancer at all. I've already spoken with Dr. Bergin, and he's available first thing in the morning."

"I'll have a huge scar! I won't be able to wear a bikini!"

Wilson was used to people coming up with strange reactions to cancer - the news that you were going to die did something to a person - but this wasn't cancer. This was actually good news. He was startled when Mrs Hernandez blared in his face "You are trying to force me to have cosmetic surgery!"

"Wait. No - "

"This thing is not going to kill me. The only thing surgery is going to do is change the way I look. That is the definition of 'cosmetic surgery'."

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. "It would also relieve your heartburn and discomfort."

"Yeah, right. Why give an antacid when you can cut someone up and make them look a little easier on your eyes?" She all but bounced off the exam table. "My husband loves my body. He can't get enough of it." She was pretty zaftig, if a little loud on the ears. Lush. Wilson didn't exactly want her, but ... he would have liked to see her in a bikini. "You think he's going want to touch me if I look like I've been gutted like a fish?"

She walked out. Wilson glanced at his watch. Greg would be at work in the clinic, evening hours, but Wilson wanted to find him and tell him the story. She'd be back - eventually: here or somewhere else, sooner or later she would want rid of the tumor. But it was... unexpected.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Chase didn't even worry about who might see him. Vogler was in his office, alone. His personal assistant let chase in and moved to stand behind him. Vogler was reading files.

"Why have you been talking to Cameron?" Chase was close to panicking.

"Well," Vogler said, in his slow, deep voice, "if Greg picks you I'll be needing a new source in that room."

"If he picks me?" Chase echoed stupidly.

"Sure. Foreman's smarter, and Greg has got a thing for Cameron."

Chase swallowed. He felt his stomach churning. "I've been feeding you information so you'll protect me."

"I will protect you as long as I need you. And you will feed me information as long as you need me. I spoke with Cameron because if I have alternatives, I don t need you."

"She's not going to rat on Doctor House," Chase said. Cameron _liked_ House.

Vogler studied Chase's face for a silent minute. "Foreman ever said anything about talking to me?" He glanced back down at the file he was reading. "Interesting."

_Okay! Illumik suggested this. I'm four chapters writing from the CollarRedux season finale right now. CollarReduxSeason2 is going to be a separate story, episodes as chapters. If you have any questions about this story or how this universe works, post them in a review or a PM and I'll answer them in an inter-season story / meta. So ppl who don't care about getting spoilers for the future of the story/universe can read it. Post your question, say if you want it answered "in character" (and who by) and promise I'll post it after C22.  
_


	17. 117 Role Model

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... (This is the fourth story in the Vogler arc.)_

**1.17 Role Model**

At first, when Cameron looked at Greg - at Doctor House - the silver tag was all she could see. Ed Vogler's name was on the tag.

Chase had tried to tell her ugly stories about things done to Doctor House when he couldn't get away, but she hadn't - those stories hadn't seemed real. Doctor House was an internationally-renowned doctor, a medical genius: it couldn't be true that people .. people actually at this hospital, were treating him... the way Chase said. Foreman listened to them. It was a locker room thing.

The silver tag was real. Vogler was very real.

Cameron found a patient with symptoms that House diagnosed within a day as Toxic Shock Syndrome (he was also right that she'd used an organic sponge instead of a tampon, and yoghurt instead of Fluconazole for her thrush) and that helped: she wasn't a difficult case, but talking with Doctor House about the patient helped Cameron figure out how to deal with seeing the silver tag every time he turned round, or spoke, or looked at her.

Cameron also put Gregory House, and variations, into a Google Alert. She didn't really suppose Vogler was going to sell him. She did expect to be fired, though as the days went by and neither House nor Vogler made any announcement, she began to wonder if the tag represented some deal.

It wasn't as if she could afford to buy Doctor House. It wasn't as if she wanted to. It wasn't really possible to have any kind of relationship with him: he was a slave, and he was her teacher.

She didn't expect a pharma company's press release to come up on Google Alert. Startled, she read the first line out loud: Eastbrook Pharmaceuticals are pleased to announce that Dr. Gregory House will present the latest research on their exciting new ACE inhibitor.

She was sitting at the computer in the Diagnostics conference room: Chase was the only other one there, and he hadn't been saying anything till now. "You're making that up."

"Press release. Doing an address at the North American Cardiology Conference in New York next Friday."

"Greg _never_ gives speeches," Chase said. Something in his voice was off: Cameron turned round to look at him, and saw Doctor House coming in the door.

"But when I really _believe_ in something," House said. The silver tag moved against his collar bone. "Gosh dang it, I ve got a chance to make a difference here."

Chase had turned round. "You made a deal with Vogler?"

"What was that?" House asked.

"What was what?"

"You got annoyed. That was clearly an annoyed face."

"Why shouldn't I get annoyed?"

"Because last week you didn t get annoyed, you made poopie in your pants." House was staring at Chase. "It's weird, it's almost like now you know you have nothing to worry about."

"Chase has nothing to worry about?" Cameron asked. It would be like House to let her know she was fired as indirectly as that.

"None of you has anything to worry about. Our patient, on the other hand, is suffering from nausea, headache, and mental confusion. Also, he's a US Senator. He has plenty to worry about, if only he could remember what it was."

"You made a deal with Vogler," Chase said again.

"It's all the rage. Everybody s doing it. Foreman's doing a bone marrow biopsy on our patient to check for cancer."

"Cancer?" Chase looked sulky and surprised. He went back to his seat. "The Senator's got AIDS."

"Cancer looks better on a press release." House was cafYrrying a file, tucked against his side.

Cameron swallowed. "What's the deal? You get to keep all of us if you flog his products?" She realized what she had said and blushed.

House didn't react. "One speech, no biggie. I need you guys to rush the ELISA test for HIV." The file he was carrying was from Eastbrook, Cameron realised. She stood up.

"Thank you. For the speech."

House looked at her blankly. "When I said rush, I meant, you know, fast. Stat's the word you doctors use, right?"

Chase was on his feet.

"I know it's hard for you," Cameron said.

"Double stat?" House said. His tone of voice was as unwelcoming as a closed door.

Chase had got to the door. Cameron followed him.

Cameron next saw House in the clinic: he was doing charts at the desk. He was wearing one of his rolltops, that covered collar and tag: it was easier to talk to him.

"Doctor House. I just wanted to - "

House didn't even look up. "You're welcome, again."

"I want you to know how much I - "

"Got it. You're grateful. Apparently you seem to think it'll mean a lot to me to know that." House went on charting.

"Do you know why people believe in God?"

House did look up then. Briefly. His eyes looked very blue, and studied Cameron intently. His gaze shifted over her shoulder. "I'm pretty certain that's not relevant to any of my patients."

Cameron glanced round. Nurse Previn was standing at the desk, watching them. She was frowning. "I thank you because it means something to me. To be grateful for what I receive. And - "

"'Doctor House', you have a patient in Room One," Previn said.

"Thank God," House said, and shuffled the charts together neatly to file them. As he was getting up, he said, quietly, "Don t try and pick me apart." He walked off.

"Doctor Cameron," Previn said.

"What?"

"Are you signing in to do clinic duty?"

"Yes?"

"Please sign in: I have a full waiting room." Previn went back to the counter and, as Cameron bent close to sign the register, Previn said quietly, "Greg is here to work, Doctor Cameron. You know the rules."

"We were just having a conversation."

"He's tagged," Previn said.

It's not like that, Cameron wanted to say. And almost did. It's not like that. But there is a room full of patients and Cameron has two clinic hours due. She doesn't like hearing Nurse Previn call House "Greg": he's a doctor, he's a _famous_ doctor, she wanted to say, he's not...

...but of course he is.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Robin Wright thought that Whatever was wrong with him still felt like bad sushi, except that he hadn't eaten anything except hospital food for days and he was pretty sure that, even in New Jersey, they didn't actually let hospital food give you food poisoning.

It had to be bad sushi. He could not, he _could not_ have got HIV.

There were still briefings to read: the key disadvantage of running for President as an active Senator was that you could not afford to miss too much Senate time.

The skinny white doctor with the cane walked back into the room. He was holding a slip of water, which he handed to Wright without other greeting, and poured a glass of water.

The slip of paper was a test result: an HIV test result.

"It's positive," the doctor said. He sat down and handed Wright the water. He produced some pills. "Your T-cell count is eight, which means there's a good chance you'll die." He said this without any personal affect, without any apparent sympathy. "I'm telling you this because we need to contact your sexual partners."

Jenny had been a grief relationship. They had lasted for exactly ten days after the funeral, after which both of them had realized all they had in common was mourning. Becky... wasn't serious, but they'd both been careful. "I've only had two girlfriends. Two, after my wife died. I used c-c-condoms." His stutter had come back. He couldn't swear absolutely that he and Jenny had always had sex with a condom, but he was pretty sure. And he and Mary... there hadn't been much sex, the last year.

"You know the chances of you getting HIV from heterosexual sex with a condom?"

"Yes," Wright said.

"Some day there will be a black president," the skinny white doctor said. "Some day there will be a president who admits to bottoming. Maybe there will even be a bottoming, black president. But one combination I do not see happening is bottoming, black, and dead. You need to stop lying to me."

Wright looked up at the skinny white man. He looked tired. Wright was finding it hard to remember the names of any of the white people he'd met in this hospital, he didn't know by now if this was a symptom or just his old inability to focus on white faces. But he knew this one was the one who was supposed to be able to diagnose anyone. He'd proved that in a lightning deduction earlier about Wright's standard campaign trail story about how he got the scar on his tongue. And he looked tired and angry.

"It must be miserable, always assuming the worst in people," Wright said. Skinny white guy had been acting as if he didn't care: and Wright could tolerate hate or love, but not indifference.

"Oh, cut the crap," the skinny guy said, "you're dying."

"You're Doctor House," Wright said.

"That's what it says on my contract."

"You're clever. You're scared of taking chances."

"I take chances all the time." The guy looked down with a brief twist of his mouth. "It's one of my worst qualities."

"On people?"

"Wanting to believe the best about people doesn t make it true."

"Being afraid to believe it doesn t make it false."

The skinny guy smirked. "Well, that's very moving. It's a shame I don't vote."

"This is who I am," Wright said simply, looking at the doctor. "I believe in people. I'm not hiply cynical and I don't make easy, snide remarks. I would rather think that people are good and be disappointed once and again."

The skinny guy stood up, leaning on his cane, and went to a wall-cupboard. He took out a syringe and a pair of gloves. "I need to draw some more blood."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Chase knew "Doctor House" hated whole-body scans: he said all they showed up was that everyone had something wrong with them, somewhere. That he had ordered one done on Senator Wright, and had invited an oncologist to sit in on the diagnostic examination of the scan.

Or the oncologist had invited himself. Doctor Wilson had seemed on the verge of tagging Greg, but nothing had happened. Vogler had tagged Greg instead.

A text message arrived from Vogler's PA: Vogler wanted to know House's whereabouts. Well, it would take some time to go through a whole-body scan images: Chase texted back their location, briefly and inconspicuously. It wasn't like "Doctor House" could do anything to him. But it saved trouble. Chase was all for that.

"Slightly enlarged lymph node in his left armpit," Doctor Wilson said.

"How slightly?" House asked.

"Quarter mil."

Chase was startled when Doctor Cuddy walked in. He'd expected Vogler to send his PA, or hospital security, to fetch Greg.

"Lymphoma?" Cuddy asked.

"Or he s had a cold in the last six months," Wilson said. "It's inconclusive."

Foreman leaned close to Chase. "What, you've got her on speed dial?" he said quietly.

Chase pretended not to hear Foreman, and said out loud, "Another slightly enlarged node over here. Two more in his neck and one in his groin."

"And there s a cyst in his liver," Wilson said.

"Looks complex," Cameron offered. "Central necrosis?"

"Spontaneous bleeding, it's benign," House said. "I was rooting for a really cool tumor, instead we're stuck with this crap."

"Doesn't matter," Doctor Cuddy said. "Once you find them, you've got to check them." She left.

House stepped back from the light table. "Well, knock yourselves out." He might have been about to say something more, but Vogler came in, followed by his PA, and House - Chase could see it - shut up.

"I just saw Senator Wright, he looks like hell," Vogler said. "That sushi must have been a lot worse than you thought." He nodded to his PA, who handed House a document.

"Here's a few key points I want you to cover during your speech."

"Fourteen pages," House said, leafing through it. He looked up at Vogler. "The audience will be comatose by paragraph two."

Vogler did not smile, but he sounded mildly amused and indulgent. "Throw in a joke." He walked out again, the PA on his heels.

House's hand, clutching the document, dropped to his side. He watched Vogler leave, then his eyes turned to examine Chase. After a moment, as Cameron and Foreman turned to look at the scans, House said, "Doctor Chase. We need to talk." He jerked his head towards the door. Apparently he meant right now.

There was nothing "Doctor House" could do to Chase. He was a slave, owned by the hospital. The hospital administrator and the chairman of the board were both pleased with Chase's work. "Doctor House"'s only power over the fellowship doctors was the power to hire and fire, and so long as Vogler was pleased with Chase, he wouldn't allow "Doctor House" to exercise that power. So it didn't matter, and Chase shouldn't feel concerned. Greg was like Stephen: he was valuable.

"How do you see this ending?" Greg asked. He sounded genuinely curious.

"What ending?" Chase said.

"I can't fire you," Greg said, unexpectedly, "so you have no reason to fear me, and therefore no reason to lie to me." He stopped, halfway down the corridor, and looked directly as Chase. "You told Cuddy where I was. You told Vogler what I was doing."

Chase had stopped too. Greg was staring at him, his eyes very blue and very perceptive.

"Yeah," Chase said finally.

"So how can I work with you?"

The question just hung there, in the air.

"Well, you don t have a choice," Chase said. He turned away from Greg, and went back to look at the scans.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Greg had been instructed to give Senator Wright his full attention - though his clinic hours hadn't been cut - and Wilson found him on the row of chairs outside the Senator's private ward. The Senator's PA, a professional-looking, middle-aged slave, was sitting at the other end of the row.

Wilson handed Greg the latte and the pastry, and sat down beside him. "Why were you doing a whole body scan when the Senator has AIDS?" he asked quietly.

Greg's hands closed around the paper cup. He looked at Wilson sideways, his eyes rolling dark against the whites of his eyes. "You know, I'm required to report sexual approaches."

Wilson laughed. "Come on, I'm just buying you a coffee."

"And I'm going to drink it," Greg said. "That doesn't mean you're not screwing with me. The Senator doesn't have AIDS. The first test was a false positive."

"You ordered a second test," Wilson said, surprised. He repeated himself, thinking about it this time: "You ordered a second test."

"I heard you the first time," Greg said.

"_Why_ did you order the second AIDS test?"

Greg gave him a look. "Standard procedure."

"Oh, well, that's you. Mister Standard Procedure. You suspected the first test was a false positive?"

"I knew he was going to Africa and I figured he was vaccinated for Hep A and B. That could cause a false positive."

"Yes," Wilson agreed, "but you knew that before you ordered the first test. What changed?"

"I should have ordered both." Greg said.

"You were _sure_ he had AIDS, then you talked to him, then you had doubts. Wait, what did he say?"

"He said he had not engaged in any risky behavior." Greg was gruff. He lifted the coffee to his mouth.

"Huh. And you believed him." Wilson was amused. _He_ wouldn't have believed someone who simply claimed that he hadn't done anything risky. He couldn't see why Greg, with all his direct of experience of men who didn't count what they did to him "risky", would believe anyone on anything other than direct evidence.

"Well, he didn't have any reason to lie."

"Everybody lies, except politicians? Greg, I do believe you re a romantic. You didn t just believe him, you believed _in_ him. Doctor Cameron's getting to you. Well, I guess you can't be around that much niceness and not get any on you."

"Is that why you haven't put the moves on her?" Greg asked.

Wilson grinned. "What makes you think I haven t put the moves on her?

Greg stared. His eyes looked unnaturally big and dark: the whites around the irises rolled nervously, uncertainly.

"Oh." Wilson was grinning harder. Greg shifted back in his chair, his chin coming up. Wilson liked that. "Oh, boy! You're in trouble." Greg didn't like the idea of Wilson with Cameron. "Do you want to meet me in the oncology lounge tonight and watch old movies and cry?"

The most unwilling smile twisted Greg's mouth. He twisted the Eastbrook publication he was holding under his arm out to show the cover to Wilson: it was a publicity report on their new ACE inhibitor.

"If I make a speech about that, at the NCC Friday night dinner, I don't have to fire Cameron or Foreman."

"What about Chase?" Wilson deflected the thoughts he was having about seeing Greg dressed up. He had an invite, of course, which he'd planned to blow off -

"He cut his own deal with Vogler."

"What kind of deal?" Wilson was startled.

Greg shrugged. "He tells Vogler where I am, what I'm doing, and Vogler doesn't fire him." He dismissed this with a shrug and tapped the report. "The new ACE inhibitor is exactly the same as the old one, all they've done is added antacid."

"Does it work?" Wilson asked.

Greg looked genuinely surprised. "That's not the point!"

"Well, of course it's the point!" Wilson was surprised in turn. Making speeches about pharmaceutical products was a part of any doctor's life. "He's not asking you to lie, he s not asking you to do something illegal - " And if he was, Greg wouldn't have had any choice, anyway.

"He's not _asking_ me to do anything," Greg said.

"Vogler gave you a choice. You chose your staff. This isn t easy for you," Wilson said, and he could see that it wasn't - Greg normally never went off PPTH grounds, let alone to New York for a public dinner and a speech - "But you make the speech, you get the dinner - how long is it since you got to do something like this? And you are doing a good thing."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Cuddy walked into Vogler's office without knocking, but Vogler appeared unsurprised. He set aside the papers he was looking at, and rose to his feet. "Doctor Cuddy. Please sit down."

"When were you going to tell me that you wanted Greg to speak at the Eastbrook dinner in New York Friday week?"

"Is there any reason why I should clear that with you?"

"He's the property of the hospital: he can't be removed from it without the consent of the Director."

"Or the unanimous agreement of the Board," Vogler said, smiling. "I have just circulated a memo requesting permission: I don't see we need a meeting to vote on such a minor matter. He'll travel to New York in my limo, in the care of two of my security guards - "

"Hospital security guards."

"Mine," Vogler said.

"PPTH guards are accustomed to handling Greg."

"Mine are accustomed to transporting slaves considerably more unwilling that Greg is. Greg will be leashed, in leg-irons and wrist shackles, until we reach the convention center. He will not be allowed to leave the convention center - the staff there will be informed he's a slave. Greg will neither be harmed nor allowed to escape. He will give one ten minute speech, be on display for the duration of the Eastbrook dinner at the NCC Conference, and be returned to PPTH well before midnight." Vogler said all this with his smooth imperturbability. And he smiled. "My preparations for transporting him and handling him are outlined in the memo. If you would like a PPTH security guard to travel with him, that's not a bad idea. Assign one."

Cuddy realized, a minute too late, by disputing the mechanics of transporting Greg, she had been trapped into agreeing to it.

"Why did you - what do you think you're going to accomplish?"

"You've been trying to control Greg by whipping him," Vogler said, still smiling. "That doesn't work. I have the benefit of being able to study your management of him from the beginning - you should never have permitted the lawyer to tag him or have him for personal weekends. Strict discipline is what a slave as smart as Greg needs - strict discipline and clear rules. When you whip Greg for breaking the rules, you as much as admit to him you can't stop him. He broke the rule, he endured the beating, and he thinks he got away with it. He _did_ get away with it. I thought at first of forcing him to fire one of those fellows - using that ridiculous contract of his, that gives him the power to hire and fire, and making clear to Greg that what powers he has are under his owner's control, not his own. But this is better."

"What good will it do your product if it becomes known a slave praised it?" Cuddy was irritated. She tried to hide it. "Greg follows your orders, gives a speech from your publicity material - we can't avoid people finding out that he's a slave."

"I was surprised how few people know it, outside this hospital," Vogler admitted. "I don't think you realize what a source of income this could be."

"Owning Greg brings in all sorts of revenue to the hospital. I have been trying to show that to you - "

"Owning Greg is expensive," Vogler cut in. "But putting him on display, making it clear what PPTH owns, that's a form of advertising for your product. You're not just selling health. You're selling doctors. Fully-trained professionals who'll follow orders. Most doctors who are at the end of their first fellowship are carrying a load of debt: the ideal time to acquire them. It isn't done because most hospitals seem to have an idea that a slave can't function as a doctor." Vogler showed his teeth. "But PPTH has a world-famous doctor who's been owned by ourselves for years: we prove it can be done, by putting Greg on display, and then what we put on the market are slaves who are more docile, better-behaved."

Cuddy stood and stared at him for a while. Vogler sat down again. "Is there anything else you wanted to talk with me about?"

"No," Cuddy said, after a long moment. "No, there isn't."

She walked out. The memo Vogler had promised, she found, was in her inbox: it would have been quibbling to point out that it had apparently been sent just after their meeting, not just before it. Three members of the Board had already consented, including Doctor Wilson. Cuddy sent a followup proposing two PPTH security staff should travel with Greg, and got Vogler's heavy agreement not even a minute later.

He had out-thought her.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

House had suggested a roundabout way of testing for hairy-cell leukemia when they couldn't biopsy his spleen, and Foreman had run the titers.

The Diagnostics box was empty: the room next to it where Doctor House lived and slept also seemed to be empty, but Foreman opened the door just to check. House was lying on the floor. He was wearing a set of earphones that Foreman hadn't seen before, and his face was lost in a kind of distracted unfocus.

He saw Foreman, whipped the earphones out, and shoved them into a pocket.

"Negative for HTLV-1 and 2 and ATLV and everything else. It's not hairy-cell."

House sat up, and nodded. He reached for his cane and used it to get to his feet.

"Hey. You really going to give that speech?"

"You've got an opinion, too?"

"I'm a little surprised," Foreman admitted. "Frankly, I thought you were too much of a self-absorbed ass to do this for us."

"You're welcome," Doctor House said briefly. He was upright again. "He's positive for Epstein-Barr."

"So what? It doesn't point to hairy-cell, it's irrelevant." He found he was saying this to House's back: for a lame man, House walked pretty fast. Foreman saw a clean roll-top lying on the back of the recliner chair: he picked it up and went after House.

"Put it on," he told House.

"What? He's not going to notice."

"You'd be surprised," Foreman said. The Senator wasn't an unobservant man. "The last thing you need right now is a patient report you weren't dressed right." He handed House the roll-top, and took away his cane. House gave him a dirty look, but pulled it on and took the cane back, then set off again at the same surprisingly brisk pace.

When House took the Senator's oxygen mask away, Foreman knew he'd been right to insist House stop to cover his collar. It was hard to hear even knowing House was probably right: no one who didn't know House would have believed a slave could do this.

"You had an epileptic seizure. That's how you bit your tongue."

"I haven't had a seizure - " the Senator protested.

"What medication did you take?"

"No seizure since I was six. No drugs since I was ten!" The Senator was struggling for breath.

"Yeah, that's it." House sounded appallingly contemptuous. "Don't worry about what the question is, don't worry that you're starting to feel dizzy, just stay on message."

"My mother used to call it physofin - " the Senator said, sounding frantic.

"Phenytoin?" House said.

"Yeah!" The oxygen mask went back on: the Senator sucked in a terrified breath. House sounded almost soothing. "Okay, okay, you're okay, it's okay. Everybody lies."

Childhood epilepsy, with phenytoin and with the Epstein-Barr virus, was associated with common variable immunodeficiency disease. Symptomless until triggered by stress. Treatable by IV immunoglobulin.

It was a set of horses coming together that Foreman knew he couldn't have seen as a zebra. CVID had been suggested by Chase because it fit the symptoms, and dismissed because there was no possible cause. House had figured it out without even knowing for sure about the phenytoin. Foreman was going to learn how to do that.

Foreman was checking the Senator's reflexes with the new blood results after a week on the IV. White cells up, T-cells back over 100.

"Well, that's good, right?" the Senator said. He looked better.

"In a week? That's terrific. You'll need medication for the rest of your life, but other than that, you're fine."

"Am I well enough to run for president?"

House hadn't said anything. "Well, why not run for pope while you're at it?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh, come on. Kennedy had Addison's, FDR had polio," the Senator said. "Two of the best presidents in the last hundred years "

"If they were running today they wouldn't stand a chance," House said. He had remembered his roll-top. He walked over to the bed, looking down at the Senator. His face was unreadable.

"So, you figure you'd be Surgeon General if you didn t have the limp."

House's mouth twisted in a strange, only half-amused smirk. For a moment, Foreman felt bad for him. House said "No, there's things I can't do, and like you said, I have to live with reality."

"Well," the Senator knocked on the hospital bed frame, a loud "for-luck" sound, "then I m running."

"Good for you," Foreman said. He liked the idea of this man as President.

"No, don't get excited," the Senator said. "He's right, I - " he stuttered "I w-won't win."

"Then why run?" House asked.

"Oh, I see, your point being the only way to make a difference is to win every fight," the Senator said, with amused satisfaction.

House shrugged and turned round and went out, leaving Foreman to do the wrap-up work. He was briefly tempted to tell the Senator that House was Greg, was a slave, but they'd got through the past days without mentioning this: might as well finish up without saying anything.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The memo had specified a series of security procedures that sounded practically paranoid, for transporting one crippled slave. Wilson knew he would see Greg only on the speaker's stage, and only for the duration of the Eastbrook dinner. Vogler had offered PPTH medical staff invitations to attend.

"I thought you weren't going to go," Julie said. She didn't sound unhappy about it, but Wilson made a face.

"I had an invite specifically from Vogler," he said. "Probably best to show my face. Early days. You don't want to go? I could probably get you a ticket."

He was pretty sure Julie would say no, and she did. After a minute, she thought to say "Unless you want me to come?" leaving Wilson free to assure her that it would be a dull evening, not worth her time.

He spotted Greg at a table by the stage. He was wearing a tux, freshly shaved, his hair neatly styled. Vogler had got someone to dress him and trim him. He looked good. He sat with four men who were wearing dark suits, white shirts, dark ties: big men who overshadowed Greg. Two of them had vaguely familiar faces: probably the PPTH security staff Cuddy had suggested.

"But hey, why listen to me?" Vogler said. His smooth, heavy voice was as irritating this evening as it was the first time Wilson had heard it. "I own the company, I'm certainly not to be trusted, right? Doctor Greg House, on the other hand, has a reputation."

The big room was full of tables: PPTH staff were sitting together, mostly, but most of the tables were doctors from other hospitals in the tri-state area, from cardiology departments down the east coast. Vogler's introduction got a warm crowd chuckle, not a laugh. A friendly sound. Doctor House never spoke in public.

Greg was on the stage. He was holding a paper. He went to the podium, and read from the paper, his voice very monotone, without looking up at all. "Eastbrook Pharmaceuticals' extraordinary commitment to research excellence is exemplified by their new ACE inhibitor, a breakthrough medical approach that will protect millions from heart disease."

Greg did look up then. His face looked very empty: his eyes were hollow. The tux hid his collar, but not, Wilson realized, as effectively as the roll-tops. You could see it if you were looking for it. Of course no one was, who didn't already know it was there. Greg stuffed the paper into his pocket, and turned away from the podium.

Vogler hadn't even had time to leave the stage. He caught Greg by the arm. What he said was inaudible from a distance, but Wilson could guess it:

- That's not a speech.

- You got enough for a press release, Greg might say.

- Fire Foreman or fire Cameron?

Wilson saw a small smile on Greg's face. His heart thumped.

Greg turned back to the podium. Vogler nodded, heavily.

"A few things I forgot to mention," Greg said. His voice wasn't a monotone any more. "Ed Vogler is a brilliant businessman." Greg nodded. He was still smiling. "A brilliant judge of people, and a man who has never lost a fight. You know how I know the new ACE inhibitor is good?"

Wilson knew what Greg was going to say. He put the palm of his left hand over his eyes.

"Because the old one was good. The new one is really the same, it's just more expensive." There was a pause. Wilson took his hand away. He couldn't resist looking at Vogler's face.

"A lot more expensive," Greg said. He sounded actually happy. "See, that's another example of Ed s brilliance. Whenever one of his drugs is about to lose its patent he has his boys and girls alter it just a tiny bit and patent it all over again. Making not just a pointless new pill, but millions and millions of dollars. Which is good for everybody, right?" Greg waved his hand. He was grinning now. "The patients, pish. Who cares, they're just so damn sick! God obviously never liked them anyway. All the healthy people in the room, let's have a big round of applause for Ed Vogler!" He clapped. He was the only person in the whole room making a sound. It was an oddly catastrophic noise, small in the big room.

Greg turned away from the podium. He pulled the crumpled paper out of his pocket and handed it to Vogler as he passed him. He said something, but Wilson couldn't catch it. The room was filled with people talking, both loudly and quietly: someone laughed very loudly and immediately quelled it. Wilson stood up. Other people were standing too, he couldn't see what was happening to Greg, and then he did: he was being hustled out of the door by the four security guards. Wilson got up and left. He knew where Vogler's limo must be parked.

When he found the limo, one of the PPTH security guards was willing to open the door and speak to him. "Mr Vogler's orders: we'll be going back to PPTH when he's finished here. Another couple of hours."

Behind the guard, Wilson could see Greg: the rented tux had been removed and was folded tidily on one of the limo seats. He was still wearing an undershirt and shorts. His hands were cuffed together behind his back, his legs shackled together, and his mouth was gagged with a bit. The guard glanced back. "Mr Vogler's orders," he said again. "Doesn't want the slave making any noise on the trip home. Do you have a message for him?"

"No," Wilson said. "I just wanted to be sure Greg was secure." He couldn't think of anything else to say. "He's valuable, you know."

One of the guards - not PPTH - put his feet on Greg's stomach. Greg twitched all over and the shackles clinked and clicked. Wilson wanted to be in there. He couldn't think of an excuse, or any reason except the real one: he wanted to hold Greg in his arms. He didn't think he wanted to take the shackles or cuffs off, but the gag should come out.

"We'll take good care of him," the PPTH security guard said. "Mr Vogler and Doctor Cuddy, both, were very clear he had to get back safe."

"Okay," Wilson said, and turned around and wandered away. "Okay," he said to himself.

It wasn't okay, obviously. Not at all.

_tbc_

_Okay! Illumik suggested this. I'm four chapters writing from the CollarRedux season finale right now. CollarReduxSeason2 is going to be a separate story, episodes as chapters. If you have any questions about this story or how this universe works, post them in a review or a PM and I'll answer them (or not, lolololol) in an inter-season story / meta. So ppl who don't care about getting spoilers for the future of the story/universe can read it. Post your question, say if you want it answered "in character" (and who by) and promise I'll post it after C22. _


	18. 118 Babies and Bathwater

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... (This is the fifth and last episode of the Vogler arc.)_

**1.18 Babies and Bathwater**

Foreman was pretty sure that there wasn't going to be a department of Diagnostics at PPTH after Greg's performance last night.

(Part of him kept pointing out that Greg had, in a week during which he'd carried a normal workload of clinic hours, spotted a recurring pattern of small changes to patent medicines which enabled this pharmaceutical company to keep renewing their patents and explained how Edward Vogler had gone from public school kid to billionaire in twenty-five years. Part of him responded that all pharmaceutical companies dicked around with patents if they could, and no normal doctor would think it worthwhile disrupting a conference dinner speech to say so. Part of him then pointed out that if Greg wasn't a doctor of normal experience, that wasn't entirely Greg's fault, but didn't protest very hard when part of him squelched this with the entirely reasonable point that if Greg were any normal doctor, he would never have ended up hospital property.)

Mostly, Foreman was pissed at Greg for messing up a Diagnostics fellowship that Foreman would never get a chance at again.

The Diagnostics conference room was empty when Foreman got there at eight am: there was a message on his pager from one of the ER nurses, about a pregnant woman with an odd set of symptoms who'd been brought in last night. Foreman went down to see her.

When he came back, after ten, the coffee pot was full all but one mug, and Chase was sitting at the desk, the crossword and a mug of coffee in front of him, as if this were a normal day. But the crossword hadn't been touched, and Chase's laptop had been closed but not shut down: Foreman bet that Chase had been working on his resume.

"Where is everybody?"

"No one's in the office?" Foreman checked. This woman was a zebra case.

"No, haven't heard from Cameron all day. You seen House?"

"Haven't had time to check eBay," Foreman said.

Chase didn't seem to think that was funny. He stood up and glanced around vaguely. "Maybe he's down in the clinic?"

"More likely in the basement," Foreman said with a grimace. He knew a slave who behaved like that deserved to be whipped, but he couldn't imagine that a whipping was going to be the end of it. Vogler didn't look like the kind of guy who tolerated any kind of impertinence or insolence from slaves, let alone outright, flagrant - _public_ - disobedience.

Foreman opened the office door to leave the ER file on Doctor House's desk, and stopped. Greg was on the floor. He was in leg irons, and his hands were cuffed behind his back. He was wearing an undershirt and shorts, scuffed and stained. His mouth was filled with a gag like a bit, that propped his jaw apart.

Chase brushed past Foreman as if he wasn't there, and knelt down beside Greg, unbuckling the gag. When he got it out, Greg said nothing: he closed his mouth, apparently with an effort, and swallowed convulsively, over and over again. He must be thirsty.

Chase had moved to unfasten the cuffs. Foreman went to the sink, filled the tooth-glass, and propped Greg's head up to let him swallow water from the glass. Once they were off, the cuffs were obviously standard PPTH issue, the usual sort for hospitals: they didn't need a key to be removed. Greg had been chained up by PPTH security. Greg's lips were dry, cracking at the edges. Foreman thought, disturbed, that if Vogler had ordered him gagged after the speech, and then never ordered him _ungagged_, Greg could have had his mouth held open by that mouthpiece for twelve hours. Well, if they got in trouble for doing this, Foreman could justify it by saying that if Greg had been left gagged for any longer, it could have caused permanent damage. Greg had gulped down all the water. He was still tagged, Foreman saw with a mixture of curiosity and disgust.

"I don't know how to get the leg shackles off," Chase said. Those needed a key. He stood up. "I'll - " He scrambled to his feet and looked at Foreman. "What do we _do_?"

Foreman stood staring at him for a moment, realizing with angry confusion that they could actually get into trouble for what they'd done. It had felt like the only thing to do, obvious and reasonable - Greg was sitting up, his right hand rubbing at his thigh, his head bent, his left leg folded up in front of him and his left arm resting on his knee. He had still said not a word, not even thanks. But Greg wasn't their property, he belonged to the hospital, and they had no more right to unchain him than they would have had to walk off with a portable MRI machine.

Foreman figured out if they were going to be let go anyway, it didn't make a lot of difference if they were sacked for undoing hospital cuffs and removing a non-regulation gag. He could argue that within the Diagnostics department, until he was actually _told_ otherwise, Doctor House was his teacher, and he had a right to a consult. He had dropped the ER file on the desk: he picked it up again, and put it down. Assuming that Doctor House was ever going to be in a state to speak.

"I'm going to get Doctor Wilson," Chase said suddenly, and left.

Foreman shrugged. He looked down at the man sitting on the floor, and decided whatever the problem, he'd be better off on the recliner chair. "Come on, big guy, up and at 'em," he said with a grimace half of amusement, and took hold of Greg's arms. Greg shuddered, violently, and seemed to resist Foreman, not actively but passively: and then seemed to give up.

It took longer and was more awkward than Foreman had expected, with Greg neither cooperating nor fighting, but eventually his boss was sitting on the recliner chair. His legs were still shackled together. Foreman swung both legs up onto the ottoman, and got the first sound out of Greg: not a scream, but something that might have been if Greg's mouth and throat weren't recovering from the gag.

Chase came back, and Doctor Wilson just behind him. Wilson was carrying a loaded syringe.

Greg shook his head. "No," he said. That came out as a hoarse, barely comprehensible grunt.

"Oxycontin," Wilson said. He produced a sealed sterile swab and took hold of Greg's left arm.

Doctor House was staring at Wilson with a familiar mixture of contempt and astonishment, but when the drug went in, suddenly, his face relaxed completely. The drug did not, Foreman was aware, take effect _that_ suddenly. Greg was evidently just relieved. Wilson produced a standard shackle key and used it on Greg's leg-irons. Greg's eyes closed and his head dropped back against the back of his chair.

They were literally standing round watching Doctor House _breathe_, Foreman thought, irritably. The silence was broken with the sound of a woman's footsteps: Foreman thought Cameron, looked round, and saw Doctor Cuddy.

"Who unchained him?" she said.

"I did," Wilson said. He kicked at the leg-irons. "He was due oxycontin at 8am. The pharmacy let me know he hadn't reported in. Doctor Chase let me know he was in the Diagnostics office, chained up and gagged."

"Gagged?" Cuddy said. She sounded startled. "All night - "

"Yes," Wilson said. He sounded angry. "He could have permanent damage to his mouth. He could have choked. Leaving a slave gagged and alone is strictly against hospital regulations, whatever he's done."

"I'll speak to the security guards."

"You know they were acting under orders - "

"Doctor Wilson, we can resume this conversation later," Cuddy said, with a snap to her voice. "Doctor Chase, Doctor Foreman, don't you have work to do?"

"Yes," Foreman said. He picked up the ER file. "39-year-old female, 28 weeks pregnant, G 4, P 0."

Doctor House's eyes had opened, and were fixed on Foreman. He coughed, and said in a raw voice, "Three miscarriages? Gimme." He held out his hand. Foreman handed him the file, almost reflexively.

"Altered mental status," Foreman added, eyes on House, "and complete loss of coordination."

"Tox screen?" House said.

"Negative for alcohol and drugs. She was on oxybutynin."

House nodded. "For incontin - " He coughed, his voice so hoarse it was almost imcomprehensible. "incontinence."

"We took her off," Foreman said, "but no change. BUN, creatinine are up, LFT slightly elevated."

"Preeclampsia," Chase said. "Call the OB-GYN service and rub some prayer beads."

"BP's normal," Foreman said, "no preeclampsia in other pregnancies."

"Because she didn't carry long enough," Chase retorted.

"The three miscarriages make me think it's an underlying physiology," Foreman said. He didn't take his eyes off House, but he was aware out of the corner of his vision that Cuddy and Wilson were both staring at them.

"Pregnancy-related autoimmunity," House said, with two fits of coughing in the middle of the words.

Wilson left the office briefly: he came back with a mug of milky coffee, and handed it to Greg, who looked at him oddly, his eyes rolling, but took the mug in both hands and drank it. His voice still sounded rough, but he wasn't coughing when he said "Too bad that Cameron quit, I could use an immunologist right now. We ll see if you're right; check the blood."

"Cameron quit?" Foreman said it without thinking.

"Last night," House said. "And do an MRA for vasculitis, too."

"There is no way she quit!" Foreman was aware he was shouting, and that this wasn't actually why he was mad. "She got fired because you're an insolent, insubordinate - "

"Doctor Cameron came to me with her resignation last night," Cuddy interrupted him. Foreman shut up.

"An ultrasound?" House said. He leant his head back against the chair and gave a painful impression of the familiar shit-eating grin. "Excellent thought! And put her on magnesium, too, in case it is preeclampsia."

"Sure," Chase said. He caught at Foreman's arm, and they both left: the last thing Foreman heard was Cuddy saying, with a mixture of anger and incredulity, "How on earth could you know Cameron quit? Who told you?"

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Chase and Foreman disappeared very promptly. Wilson wouldn't have thought either of them would have had the nerve to unchain Greg without permission.

Cuddy sounded angry and incredulous. "How on earth could you know Cameron quit? Who told you?"

Greg's head had dropped back against the chair again. The mug dropped sideways, landing on the floor: the handle broke off. Greg jerked upright at the noise. He swallowed and rubbed his mouth.

"Cameron checks my e-mail," he said. "And sorts my mail. She'd have been in here at eight. She wasn't sick last night and she didn't do anything to get fired." Greg swallowed again. His voice was drying up. "Does it matter?"

Cuddy dropped the cane Greg was allowed to use on the floor. Greg twitched again as it landed with a clack. "Special board meeting today," Cuddy said, "only one item on the agenda: you. Clean up, get down to the clinic, and start putting your hours in."

"Can I have breakfast?" Greg said. He didn't move. Wilson could hear the bravado in his voice: it surprised him that apparently Cuddy couldn't.

She took one step closer to him. She was angrier than Wilson had ever seen her. "I'd like to have you whipped bloody for what you did last night," she said. "Now get to the showers, get cleaned up, and get to work." She walked out again.

Greg swallowed once more, and glanced at Wilson. He bent to pick up his cane, and effortfully, he pushed himself to his feet. His right leg gave way and he nearly fell: he stayed more-or-less upright, bent over the cane, shivering.

"Can you get to the showers?"

"No alternative," Greg said, in Hebrew, and Wilson isn't sure he's heard right: shul was a long time ago.

"I'll get you something to eat," Wilson said after a long moment of watching Greg make unbearably slow progress across the floor.

Greg's breath came hard. He was struggling to stay upright. Every move he made was visibly causing him pain. It was the hottest thing Wilson had ever seen, and if he stood watching it any longer, he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from fucking Greg right there.

As any man with a private office will, Wilson had lube and wipes in a drawer so that he can clean up after jerking off. He doesn't normally jerk off in the middle of the morning, he doesn't normally jerk off in ordinary office hours at all. But it's that or die of blue balls. The e-mailed memo summoning all board members to a special meeting is in his inbox. Cuddy made clear she wants to send Greg for ordinary discipline, or extra-ordinary discipline. Whip him bloody. Keep him. Wilson jerks his hand up and down his stiff dick, images filling his mind, of Greg tied up for discipline, being beaten, so hard the skin broke. Greg walking as if every joint hurt. Greg gagged. Wilson is thinking about the picture Chase gave him, in just a few words, when Wilson abandoned the paperwork he'll have to do later, and followed Chase to the Diagnostics office: of Greg huddled on the floor, not just shackled by the legs but his arms held behind his back by cuffs, his mouth gagged. Last night he'd thought he'd take the gag out, be able to push his tongue into Greg's mouth, hear him make those small suppressed noises of pain.

Today he thinks, he just wants to be able to hold Greg, just like that, forever: helpless and in pain. He caught glimpses of the intriguing scar, but nothing like seeing Greg naked. He comes over his hand, thinking about rubbing his dick against Greg's scarred thigh.

Coming didn't relax him, didn't make him feel better. Wilson tidied himself up, wiped up, opened the balcony window to air out the room before anyone else came into it and smelled what he had been doing.

Vogler would want Greg punished. Most likely, he'd prefer to have Greg gone. To keep Greg, Cuddy evidently knew, it would be necessary to punish him. A lot.

To make clear to Greg he wasn't allowed freedom of speech. Gag him, perhaps, on a regular basis. Wilson couldn't get it up so soon, but his dick twitched at the thought.

The alternative was for the hospital to sell him. There would probably be research institutes or medical facilities that would pay what Greg was worth, to buy him to do his proper work. That was intolerable.

The last option was if Vogler really did want revenge so much he was prepared to lose money: if he sold Greg without his medical qualifications that made him so valuable, just an aging, crippled slave.

Then Wilson could afford to buy him. If he could get hold of him. Vogler would... if Vogler were planning that, he'd plan something much worse for Greg than being bought by Wilson. Unless he just put him up for auction. Wilson sank his head into his hands.

Julie would have something to say. A lot to say. If Wilson came home with a slave who wasn't even conventionally attractive, too crippled to do sensible work, would have a hell of a health insurance bill to pay, and who her husband wanted with an intensity he'd never felt for her.

Wilson looked at the phone. It was awfully tempting to pick it up, call the lawyer he'd used for his last divorce, and get started on this one, now. He'd rather divorce Julie and buy Greg.

He'd spent too much time on this already, or not enough. Find out what Vogler planned - he'd need a unaminous vote of the Board to sell Greg, especially if he wanted to sell him at a loss - and delay it for 24 hours by denying his vote. If Cuddy could talk Vogler into accepting a serious punishment, that was the best solution.

Really it was.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Rachel had planned to breastfeed for a whole year. She kept wanting to say that to the doctor who was examining her baby. She had eaten fenugreek and bitter thistle, she had used a breast pump, she had _tried_. But she hadn't been able to produce enough milk, and eventually they'd used Uncle Jacob's diet for Olive.

"She gets sick a lot," Joel told the doctor, "but this cold got really bad all of a sudden. And the fever..." The fever had scared Rachel last night, and was scaring her this morning. "Shhhh, it s okay," Joel said to Olive.

"It's not a cold," the doctor said tersely. He looked tired himself, really exhausted, as if he'd run a night shift into an early shift. It was nearly noon. "Pneumonia." He handed Olive back to Rachel: she clutched at her, feeling the fragility and heat with new panic.

"Relax," the doctor said, "pneumonia's the least of her problems."

Rachel's mind filled with absolute panic. The doctor's dry, tired voice was almost reassuring. "She has gone from the twenty-fifth weight percentile to the third in one month. Now, I'm not a baby expert but I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to shrink."

From the rush of words out of Joel about what they ate, Rachel could tell he had been exactly as panicked.

She said, sure now they were wrong, "But it's healthy, raw food. We re vegans. Almond milk, tofu, vegetables..." Uncle Jacob had been helpful. Mom had been angry with her own brother, with Rachel, with Joel. Mom, oh god, mom had _said_ ... Olive felt so small, so light, so infinitely fragile...

"Raw food," the doctor said. He looked, even through exhaustion, very amused. "Now if only her ancestors had mastered the secret of fire." His teasing made Rachel feel better, but when he said "I'm having her admitted," she panicked again.

"Is she going to be all right?"

"Antibiotics for the pneumonia, IV feeding to get the weight up. Relax, it's a vegan IV."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The meeting hadn't gone any of the ways Wilson had expected. Vogler hadn't touched on Greg's flagrant act of disobedience and insolence last night: hadn't even mentioned it, let alone talked about an appropriate punishment for it. He had listed the running costs of keeping the Diagnostics slave, including the three fellows: he had listed the multiple breaches of the code of practice that the Diagnostics slave was guilty of, including the attempt to get a bribe from the Mafia: when Doctor Simpson tried to interrupt, Vogler went on like a courteous steamroller: and then, simply, he called for a yes-no vote for the sale of the Diagnostics slave, and added, emphatically, that if he failed to get a unanimous "yes" vote, he was withdrawing his hundred million dollar donation and resigning as Chair.

Another way that the meeting hadn't gone as Wilson expected was that after he was the only "no" vote, Vogler invited him to leave the room while the Board voted him off it. Not only had he been the youngest department head to sit on the Board, he was also going to be the youngest department head with the shortest tenure. And tomorrow, the Board could vote unanimously to sell Greg, without Wilson having any say in where.

Walking back to his office, after giving his verbal resignation, Wilson felt as if he were moving through a stunned world. Everything had changed so fast, so far, and all he had wanted to do was keep Greg -

Why had Cuddy voted yes?

Wilson stopped, about to push open his door. Cuddy had bought Greg twelve years ago, and he'd been expensive to run for five years: her justification for his having three fellows was that she wanted him to train them, to pass on what he knew. Selling him now wasted all the money that had been sunk in him for five years. It was a bad administrative decision, and Cuddy knew it: why hadn't she voted No?

...because she knew _I_ would. Wilson pushed open the door, and sat down at his desk, and made two phone calls. One to a licenced PI, to get evidence that Julie was sleeping around: Wilson gave a few dates - including last night - when he was pretty sure that Julie had been out screwing. One to his lawyer, to let him know that the third marriage was about to be terminated, by Wilson, on grounds of infidelity.

"Can I ask a personal question?" The lawyer didn't pause. He'd dealt with Bonnie's divorce. "Have you been completely faithful?"

There were other occasions, other people, other affairs of small or no moment. But the first person who came to mind, even though technically Wilson hadn't had sex with him - not yet - was Greg.

"Not entirely," Wilson said. "I'm prepared to make it a no-fault divorce. I just don't want to pay alimony." He thought about it. "She can have the house."

His third phone call was to a nearby long-stay hotel to book a room for the next month - even if he had a friend he could stay with, which he didn't, his other plans would have made this complicated enough.

Then he started packing the stuff from his office into cartons from the stationery closet. Hopefully, he'd just be unpacking it again.

But. If Greg was sold, and then bought by any medical institution, he could get a job there. Played right, getting invited to resign by Vogler could even be a good career move.

Wilson stopped half way through sorting tchotkes. He was really - he really had - given up a job he liked - set in motion divorcing his wife - just because of two assumptions, neither of which could be proved -

Just because he wanted Greg?

Right then, Greg pushed the door open, without knocking.

"Doctor Wilson, I need a clinical trial for small-cell lung cancer - "

Greg stopped, mid-sentence, and stared at Wilson, at the stacked cartons, and the emptied shelves and walls.

"What are you doing?"

"I got sacked," Wilson said.

Two assumptions. Staring at Greg, both of them flicked through Wilson's mind: either Cuddy intended to sell Greg, cut the hospital's investment, keep Vogler's hundred million, in which case Wilson intended to get hired by whatever institution bought Greg's medical genius: or Cuddy had no intention of selling Greg, and was setting Wilson up to be the cat's paw to delay the sale for 24 hours... in which case, Wilson was pretty confident he'd get his job back. Cuddy was manipulative, but not disloyal.

Greg stood still, leaning on his cane. He swallowed, visibly. He didn't say anything.

"I voted to keep you," Wilson said. He walked round Greg, and closed the door. "You were insolent and grossly disobedient, but I didn't think the hospital should sell you."

"And Vogler's..." Greg's voice was thin. "He's sacking everyone who voted against the sale?

"Yeah, every one of us." Wilson walked round Greg again, back to his desk.

"Just you?" Greg's voice cracked in the middle of the sentence.

"Yeah," Wilson confirmed, nodding. "I'm off the board. Getting dumped looks great in Who's Who. Vogler gave me the option of resigning, and I took it."

Greg gave a thin smile. "Big of him."

"Yeah," Wilson said again. "Well, you'll be gone soon, too. There's another Board meeting scheduled for tomorrow. Same agenda as the one today."

Greg stared down at the floor. He looked tired and scared. Bracing both hands on his cane, he looked up. "This is for the patient Chase and Foreman brought me this morning. She has small-cell lung cancer. Three centimeter non-operable tumor in her right upper lobe, starting to press against her esophagus. It hasn't metastasized, yet. Those clinical trials?"

"Okay," Wilson said. "I'll make some calls."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Chase had found the only way to deal with numbing terror was think about whatever he was doing right now. House that morning, chained up like Stephen the day Mom sold him. House walking around with hollow eyes, leaning on his cane, desperately lame but keeping going, running the DDX, giving orders.

Chase was too busy to use his line to Vogler. It didn't matter anyway. Vogler was going to sell Greg.

After that, Chase wouldn't have a job. His visa was tied to working for PPTH. His legal status as a free foreign national, fully employed, was dependent on Cuddy and Vogler wanting to make things right for him. Neither one was likely to.

Scrubbing for surgery. Greg and Foreman were both there. Neither of them had looked at Chase since yesterday morning. wilson had been sacked.

The phone in the OR went off. A nurse picked it up, listened, and held it up to the surgeon's ear. He listened for a minute or two. "Wake her up," he said, "That was Vogler; surgery's off."

Chase turned and looked at House. He wasn't looking at anyone. His head had gone up, his eyes were wide. He turned round and walked out of the OR. Chase followed.

House didn't seem to see him. Not even when they were in the same elevator. He was heading for Cuddy's office, Chase supposed, and there wasn't anything that Chase could do. Trip him, maybe. But if Greg was going to be sold, they surely couldn't do anything worse to him.

House walked out into the lobby: he stopped dead. Chase followed him, and realized: Vogler was coming down the stairs. Chase should have tripped him, he knew it, should have grabbed him, but House was already yelling. "_Hey!_"

The whole lobby seemed to stop. Chase froze by the elevator.

House shouted "You're killing her!"

Vogler turned and looked at him. His eyes flicked to Chase, and Chase knew with sudden coldness that Vogler had something in mind for him, too.

"Really?" Vogler said, smooth and cold. "See, I thought you were the one trying to ram her into a drug trial five minutes after surgery."

"She knows the risks, she was fully informed - " There was still not a trace of fear in Greg's voice. Vogler had stopped when Greg shouted at him, but Greg was limping towards him, slow but steady.

"Dr. Prather's running the study, and he wasn t fully informed."

"Not his life, not his call!" Greg was practically face-to-face with him now.

"His study, his call," Vogler said. He said it with heavy finality, as if that was the end of the discussion.

"Right, so she kicks off, his numbers look bad."

Vogler reacted "The numbers look bad, the study looks bad!"

"Which would cost you money!" Greg was in Vogler's face, leaning forward.

"And keep a life-saving protocol off the market!" Vogler sounded as if he had lost track of who he was arguing with: Chase wanted to be somewhere else.

"One person, one blip in the data!"

"You ever heard of the FDA? They eat blips for breakfast! One person should never endanger thousands!"

Greg's anger came out in a snarling jerk of humor. "Well, thank God you were here to save all those lives!"

There was a pause. Literally no one in the lobby had moved or spoken. Even the security guards were standing still.

Chase saw Vogler realise he was standing in a public place, arguing with a slave. He saw Vogler breathe out, lips pursing. He heard - the whole lobby heard, in the silence, Vogler's rich chuckle. "The board's meeting again this evening. Why don t you settle down?" He reached out and took hold of the tag attached to Greg's collar, tugged and twisted hard, and the link broke with a sound very loud in the big lobby. "Get yourself cleaned up. Ask Doctor Chase if you can use his cologne. We want you presentable, at least. Doctor Chase."

Very unwillingly, Chase came across the room.

"Put Greg on a leash and get him back to Diagnostics," Vogler said.

Chase reached out and put his hand round Greg's left wrist. "Come on," he said, almost inaudibly. Greg's head turned and he stared at him, as if he didn't even recognise him.

"I said, get him on a leash," Vogler said.

A security guard had appeared at Chase's elbow. He handed Chase a leash. Reaching up to clip the leash to the d-ring at the back of Greg's collar was unexpectedly awkward: Greg stood still, staring beyond Vogler. Doctor Cuddy had come out of her office and was watching them.

The floor didn't helpfully open up. The elevator didn't crash. Greg didn't speak to him. Chase walked them to the door of the Diagnostics conference room, and unclipped the leash. Greg turned and looked at him, for a long moment. He looked as if he might say something. Then he shrugged and went in.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

There was a conversation Cuddy had with Greg before the board meeting. He wouldn't meet her eyes, and Cuddy understood he knew - from somewhere, probably Wilson - that she had voted for his sale the previous day.

He had CT scans. Of the baby whose parents Cuddy had reported to the police for child endangerment, for starving their baby.

"Her thymus gland - "

"DiGeorge Syndrome. It's genetic, can cause the gland to wither to nothing."

"This is why she couldn't gain weight," Cuddy understood.

"Yeah."

"I'll call the police and Social Services and have all the charges withdrawn."

"I've sent a test down to confirm; when it comes back you should start Olive on immunoglobulin replacement."

Startled, Cuddy handed him the CT scans. "You're not going to do it?"

"I assume I won't be here," Greg said, very quietly and flatly.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

There was a conversation Cuddy had with Vogler during the board meeting.

"You think you own us." You think you can manipulate _me_.

"I move for the immediate dismissal of Doctor Lisa Cuddy."

She stood up, right then, and looked at the Board members, realizing that the time for careful strategy had gone by. "If you think we should sell Greg, if you think I deserve to go, Wilson deserved to go, then vote yes. But if you re doing this because you are afraid of losing his money, then he's right! He does own you." She looked at the four remaining Board members. "You have a choice. Maybe the last real one you'll have here."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

There was a conversation Cuddy had with Wilson after the board meeting, after she'd un-accepted Wilson's resignation and offered him his seat back on the Board.

"Vogler told me Greg needed strict discipline, not just whipping."

Wilson was unpacking cartons of books and certificates.

"Well, I can't say he isn't right. Greg just cost us $100 million."

"The lesser of two evils," Cuddy said. "Vogler wasn't just planning to sell Greg. He had in mind a whole production and sales line of doctors. I'm sorry we're losing his money, though. Still leaves the problem of Greg."

"Are you planning to have him whipped?" Wilson asked.

Cuddy looked at him. The question was phrased almost too neutrally, without condemnation.

"No. But he needs some kind of personal control. I want you to consider tagging him."

_tbc_

_Okay! Illumim suggested this. I'm three-and-a-bit chapters writing from the CollarRedux season one finale right now. CollarReduxSeason2 is going to be a separate story, episodes as chapters. If you have any questions about this story or how this universe works, post them in a review or a PM and I'll answer them (or not, lolololol) in an inter-season story / meta. So ppl who don't care about getting spoilers for the future of the story/universe can read it. Post your question, say if you want it answered "in character" (and who by) and promise I'll post it after C22._


	19. 119 Goat

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... This is the post-Vogler story, based on episode 19, "Kids", except that title is so wildly inappropriate for how this chapter turned out that I'ma caling it something else._

**1.19 Goat**

"Come with me," Wilson said, and clipped the leash to Greg's collar. He had already called Julie to let her know he might have to pull an all-nighter at the hospital, so sorry: with ny luck she would use this to go out and meet whoever she was screwing.

The hotel was within walking distance, just about, but Wilson hailed a cab. Greg went on the floor. He was silent, which was something.

Wilson checked in. His room was on the third floor. They took the short elevator ride in silence. Wilson took the cane out of Greg's hand as soon as they got to his room. He unlocked the door, steered Greg inside, and locked it again behind them. The clean-hotel smell of the room, passionless and empty, met them.

Wilson tugged Greg to the bed, lay down on it fully dressed, pulling Greg down with him, and lay, holding him in his arms. He ran his hands over Greg's back, rubbed his face against Greg's shoulder - the t-shirt he was wearing smelled of sweat and cheap soap, the muscles of his back were hard under Wilson's hands, his face when Wilson nuzzled it was bristly with stubble and cold from the outside air, colder than Wilson's lips.

Wilson didn't know how long he would have stayed lying there, holding Greg and nuzzling at his face and neck, if his belly hadn't rumbled. Lazily, he glanced at his watch: it was past seven. He would have been home half an hour ago, sitting down to microwaved appetizers, the smell of whatever Julie had cooked - or, more likely, taken directly from the freezer and decanted from supermarket wrapping.

He stretched his legs, feeling loose and relaxed. It was the first time, Wilson realized, he had ever broken off a relationship, rather than waiting to be dumped. He had been waiting for Julie to dump him, and she would have sooner or later. He would never again, _never again_, sit across the table from Julie eating tasteless food and telling her about his day.

Unexpectedly, confused by his own reactions, Wilson felt his eyes fill with tears. He wasn't sad it was over, but his eyes were going to spill: he didn't want Greg to see. He sat up quickly and turned round, pulling his shoes off, looking round the room: he'd picked it for closeness to the hospital, but it looked comfortable enough, corporate beige, wall-to-wall carpet, expensive and without any personal touch.

"I'm hungry," he said out loud. "Are you?" As he bent to take the second shoe off, he rubbed his eyes unobtrusively against the sleeve of his shirt. Greg didn't answer.

Wilson turned around. Greg hadn't moved. He was lying propped up against the headboard, also beige, watching Wilson.

"Hungry?" Wilson asked. After a moment, Greg nodded: he still didn't move much. "Okay. Pizza?" He didn't wait for Greg's nod. He got up and walked round the bed, feeling the texture of the carpet underfoot, different from the texture of the bedroom carpet this morning, picking up the phone. He knew the number of the pizza delivery joint nearest the hospital, and he remembered that Greg had wanted a Mexicana with extra cheese. He ordered something for himself, one of their specials, the second one they named, and accepted the offer of a deal on beer: two pizzas, a side of buffalo wings, two bottles of Coors.

Greg sat up. He had been lying still so long the sudden upright jerk seemed to hurt him. "I'm supposed to be at the clinic at eight," he said.

"Not tonight," Wilson said. Cuddy had given Greg the night off.

"I get the oxycontin at eight," Greg said.

"Not tonight. You got a shot of oxycontin about quarter past ten. Tonight you get oxycontin at half past nine. I have the pills. Tomorrow morning you get oxycontin at half past eight. After that, back to your usual schedule." Wilson was pleased he remembered all of that.

Greg nodded. He looked round the room, and back at Wilson. His head hardly moved: only his eyes.

"I want to get your jeans off," Wilson said suddenly. It had just occurred to him. He didn't have to do this all at once, he could savor it, and part of what he wanted, was to see Greg moving, lame and painstakingly graceful, wearing only t-shirt and undershorts. He moved: Greg shifted almost at the same time, about to move across the bed towards Wilson. Wilson laughed, stayed Greg with a hand, and moved round the bed to Greg's feet. He pulled off Greg's shoes, then his socks, admiring the thin feet with the crooked big toes, holding Greg's feet in his hands, moving up the bed to kneel over him and strip off his jeans.

He was wondering, in the spirit of choosing between one chocolate and the next, if he should lie down beside Greg and hold him again, or make him get up and walk around, when Greg said, very quietly and flatly, "Can I use the bathroom?"

"Of course," Wilson said, sitting up, surprised and annoyed with himself for being surprised. When Greg bent to pick up his cane, though, Wilson took it out of his hand. "I know you don't need it over short distances," he said.

"No," Greg said. He had a very small voice sometimes. He took hold of the headboard and pushed himself to his feet, then began a slow walk with his right hand pressed against his thigh.

Wilson lay back against the pillows and watched him. Greg probably wasn't trying to be deliberately tantalizing. He walked slow because of the scar in his thigh. Wilson swallowed. He sat up, following Greg with his eyes, until the moment Greg's hand reached the doorhandle of the bathroom, when it suddenly occurred to Wilson that if Greg wasn't as compliant as he seemed, this was asking for trouble. He got up hastily. "Wait!" He held the door open for Greg to go in, and set the lock to _off_.

"If I hear that setting being changed, I'll call hotel security," Wilson said.

Greg shrugged. "Got it."

He was long enough in the bathroom for Wilson to think of switching on the TV and flicking through channels. CNN, Fox, the tail end of a Hitchcock movie, a Monster Trucks rally, a sci-fi movie about Los Angeles being destroyed, a British show where everyone spoke in improbable accents, a hospital soap... the nurse was pretty, and the doctor was gorgeous. Wilson stayed watching the two women talk to each other about soap opera medicine, when the door opened and Greg came out again. Wilson switched back to the movie channel: the next one on was _Notorious_. He'd always liked Cary Grant.

"Was that General Hospital?" Greg asked, standing by the bed.

"I don't know," Wilson said. He tugged at Greg to come and sit down beside him, put the remote down, and wrapped his arm round Greg's shoulders. He hadn't ever kissed a slave before, but he was thinking about kissing Greg. There wasn't anyone here to see.

Greg was still for a moment, and then he leaned his head against Wilson's, and settled into Wilson's arm.

Wilson was watching Cary Grant sweet-talk Ingrid Bergman when the pizza arrived. He had been rubbing his hand down Greg's side, enjoying the feel of the hard muscle under the soft cloth, the bumps of the ribs, the curve indenting to the waist, the bump of the hip-bone, and tantalizing himself, each time his hand got to that spot on Greg's leg, with the feel of that deep scar. He got up, and as he did so, almost surprised himself by putting his mouth on Greg's, tongue slipping between quickly-parted lips.

He'd apparently ordered a pizza with clams. Greg's Mexican pizza looked more appetizing. Wilson thought about stealing a slice. "Why did you brush your teeth?" he asked, putting the boxes down on the bed and settling back.

Greg looked at him. His lips parted, not in a smile.

"Do you own me now?"

"What?" Wilson was startled.

"Don't get me wrong, I can think of worse people. Ayersman's got halitosis. Bergen likes choking. I could work my way through the whole staff in alphabetical order and still come up with you." Greg's voice ran down. He swallowed again. "Did Vogler price me down and put me up for sale? Did you buy me?"

"How can I afford you?" Wilson was startled. "You're worth, I don't know, millions - And Vogler's dead."

"Dead?" Greg flinched, a whole-body twitch. "What happened?"

"Not literally. He's gone. Cuddy got the rest of the Board to vote him off it. She asked me back on, and I think she's going to ask Cameron to come back. Didn't she tell you?"

Greg had been sitting in a huddle. His head was ducked down. He shrugged again, or twitched, it was hard to tell. "You don't tell hospital equipment anything. Cuddy doesn't, anyway." He didn't move. "You're probably the kind of guy who talks about his mortgage to the ATM."

Wilson laughed, startled. He pushed the Mexican pizza box closer, and took a slice of his own clam pizza.

"I was told I could tag you," Wilson said.

"I brushed my teeth after I threw up," Greg said.

Wilson stared. Greg looked back at him. He picked up a slice of pizza, and bit into it, not taking his eyes off Wilson.

"Are you sick?" Wilson touched Greg's forehead; he wasn't running a fever. Greg held still for the touch, and went back to eating pizza.

"Not sick. Scared," Greg said.

"What of?"

Greg laughed. "Getting fucked, no lube," he said. "

"I have lube," Wilson said. "What are you really scared of?"

Greg stuffed the rest of the pizza slice into his mouth: it looked disgusting and kept him too busy chewing to answer for a few minutes. Wilson went on looking at him, hand tapping, not letting himself be distracted.

"You're a sadist," Greg said.

Wilson sat up. He was ready to shout at Greg, to deny it, to assert he wouldn't hurt Greg, but before Greg had sounded the last_ t_ in sadist, he knew Greg was right.

He was attracted to Greg's pain. It was an aspect of himself that had never occurred to him before. He was turned on by Greg _in_ pain. He'd never wanted to hurt anyone. He didn't want to hurt Greg. But the thought of Greg in pain - the sight of Greg in pain - touching that scar on his leg and knowing how much the scar hurt him, even with heavy painkillers - This was turning him on like crazy.

"This would be so much easier if you were a masochist," Wilson said, meeting Greg's eyes.

Greg looked actually amused. "But then I'd never get any work done."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"But you want me to be in pain," Greg said. He pushed the Mexican pizza away from him. "And when I'm in pain, you want me. Admit it."

Wilson knelt up. He closed both pizza boxes and put them tidily off the bed. He felt almost drunk. "I want you naked," he said. He swallowed. "It's half past eight. You're due to get oxycontin in an hour. I set my watch. So for the next hour - " He swallowed again, and said, almost unbelieving that he was articulating it, "I get to enjoy you, naked, in pain, in bed, which is exactly where I want you, and then you get a painkiller. Is this going to make you throw up?"

Greg's hands were pressing down on the bedding. "Tomorrow - I get to go back to work?"

"Yes," Wilson said.

"As head of diagnostics?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll try not to vomit on you any time in the next hour."

"Thanks." Wilson was unexpectedly amused. "I guess I can count on self-interest for you not to vomit after I give you the oxycontin."

"Probably." Greg had his fingers hooked under his t-shirt. He got it off over his head. He glanced at Wilson. "Are you going to get undressed?"

By tomorrow, with any luck, the PI would have the evidence of Julie's infidelity and Wilson could go home and have his clothes packed up. Tonight, he had a basic change and today's suit for tomorrow: he had better not get it stained or rumpled. The jacket went on a hanger, the pants in the press, Wilson looked at the tie and thought he could buy one at the hotel gift store for tomorrow: he put his shoes outside to be shined, and came back wearing his button-down shirt, undershorts, and carrying the tie in his hand.

Greg was under the bed covers, though his arms were resting on top, as if trying to bear the covers down over his body. Wilson took hold of one arm, looped his tie round the wrist, let go to loop his tie round the other wrist, and tied them together in a loose knot. Greg had gone silent again. He didn't say anything, or try to resist, when Wilson pulled the covers back and looked at the deep scar on Greg's leg.

The debridement had been severe. The injury, whatever it was, must have been extensive. Greg probably no longer had normal mobility in that leg, with so much muscle tissue missing. Wilson lay down on the bed beside him and put his hand over the scar, touching gently, absorbing the feel of the scar tissue through the pads of his fingers and the palm of his hand. There was so much scarring, and it went so deep, and hurt so much...

Wilson was wondering, in a dreamy, aroused haze if he could lick the scar, what it would feel like under his lips and tongue, what it would taste like: like normal skin, or different? Suddenly, Greg twisted round, shoving off with his good leg, using his good hip as a pivot fluidly but with a grunt of pain, his scarred leg slid out of Wilson's reach: Greg hooked with his elbows, kicked again with his good leg, and was sprawled with his feet against the headboard, his face against Wilson's groin, his mouth opening to mouth at Wilson's hard-on under his shorts, using his teeth to pull the clothing down and going down on Wilson's cock, all before Wilson had completely realized what was happening.

And by then, he didn't want to stop Greg.

Greg didn't seem to need to breathe. That was what Wilson thought afterwards. He inhaled Wilson's cock down into his throat and fucked his mouth on it, all the way to the root, and it seemed to go on forever.

Wilson came up out of a satisfied post-orgasmic haze to his watch beeping and Greg saying, repeatedly and with a kind of flat desperation, "It's half past nine. I get my pill. Wake up." He still had the tie tangled round his wrists, Wilson saw, which probably explained why he hadn't bothered getting up to search the room for the oxycontin. The pill bottle was in Wilson's briefcase, which had a combination lock, though not one probably beyond Greg's abilities to crack it.

He got up and opened the briefcase, turning it away from Greg, _why make it easy for him?_ and got out the single dose of oxycontin.

"I can take it dry," Greg said.

"You shouldn't," wilson said, in automatic lecturing mode. "Dry-swallowing pills can damage your oesophagus and your stomach lining." He fetched Greg a tooth-glass, filled with tap water, and pushed the pills into his mouth, one after the other, enjoying the feel of Greg's mouth against his fingers. He took off the rest of his clothes - it was early but he felt drunk with tiredness - and lay down, pulling Greg to lie against him, on his good side, his hands still tied together in front of him. He put an arm over Greg, and nuzzled into the back of his neck.

Tonight, at home, he and Julie would probably still be sitting in front of the TV. He'd have given in to Julie's choice of movie. Tonight, here, was better. So much better.

Wilson woke about three in the morning. Julie wasn't there and the ceiling of their bedroom looked strange.

He came awake a bit further and realized he was in the hotel room: Greg should have been spooned against him. Wilson sat up and turned the bed lamp on.

Greg was sitting on the floor, an empty pizza box beside him, playing with Wilson's phone. Automatically, Wilson glanced at his watch: they had gone to sleep before ten, it was after three.

"How long have you been awake?"

"Couldn't sleep." Greg didn't look up.

"Guessed that," Wilson said shortly.

"You've got really dull games on your phone."

"I didn't know I _had_ games on my phone."

"Seriously?" Greg looked up this time, glanced down again. "This game isn't even realistic. There are no snakes that kill themselves by running head-on into walls."

"When did you wake up?"

Greg shrugged. "I think I must have slept some of the time Vogler had his goons dump me on the floor in his office. Pretty certain I was awake by eight, because that was when I started thinking Cameron was going to walk in. Is Cuddy really going to hire her back?"

Wilson dismissed this with a handwave. "You haven't slept tonight?"

"Sleep is overrated. Anyway I couldn't sleep." Greg went on playing with the phone, head bent.

"Come to bed."

"I'm supposed to be at the clinic by eight. I should get dressed."

"That's hours away. Come to bed. Now."

Greg looked up. His eyes showed dark. He didn't move.

"You really _don't_ want to," Wilson said.

Greg didn't move. "Are you going to punish me?" His lips parted in a shit-eating grin. "Or don't you like morning sex?"

Wilson swallowed. "I'm not going to hurt you." He was remembering what he'd said, and practically blushing. "Look, you should get some sleep. Just - " he pointed at the other side of the bed. "Lie down." He reached across and turned on the bedside light at that side, and turned off the light. "I'm just going to catch another three or four hours sleep. You should too." He pulled the cover up and closed his eyes.

He wasn't actually asleep when Greg came to the other side of the bed, and lay down, but he managed to pretend he was. And after a while, he was.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson delivered Greg to the clinic in time for his morning dose of oxycontin, and five minutes before the PI texted him.

Julie was having an affair. The PI had the photographs. He e-mailed them to Wilson, who forwarded them to his lawyer without looking at them. He didn't want to know. He almost wished he didn't know.

Nonetheless, he caught himself thinking, as he talked to his patients and his staff, all the ridiculously normal morning, that he'd go home this evening. _Home_. The house he and Julie shared.

Sex with Julie would be - tactically a bad idea. His lawyer had approved his plan to move into a hotel, to make clear Julie and he were separated. In principle, the lawyer had told him, a couple can count as "separated", while sharing a home: in practice, it works better if you two are clearly living apart.

Sex with Julie wouldn't involve excruciatingly delicious blowjobs. Sarcastic questions. Blue-eyed stares. The feeling of moving forward on an exquisitely fine line that was pulling feelings out of Wilson he never knew he had. That he didn't necessarily _want_ to have. He was turned on by physical pain. He hadn't wanted to know that.

Sex with Julie would be comfortable, normal, unexciting, almost friendly. They'd talk of daily gossip over the dinner table. They'd sit and watch TV. They'd go to bed. It wouldn't be like last night.

Oh God, it wouldn't be like last night.

At noon, Wilson walked down to the clinic. Greg was finishing his charting. He looked up, his face impassive, and stared at Wilson, and looked down again at his work.

The sound system came on with a loud beep.

"Can I have your attention please," Cuddy's voice said, magnified. "Code Yellow. A judge at the campus pool center collapsed during today's swimming meet. LP has revealed a virulent form of bacterial meningitis. The 2500 people at the pool center were exposed and are being bused to all the neighboring hospitals. Approximately 900 people will be arriving here in the next fifteen minutes. Can I ask everyone in the clinic waiting room to leave immediately. I repeat, immediately, as soon as the first buses arrive, this will become a quarantine area."

Wilson took hold of Greg's wrist. "Up." He said over his shoulder to Previn, "He's finished his shift."

They were at the elevators before Greg asked, subdued, "Can I ask what you're doing? Cause if I remember right, Code Yellow means - "

"You're exhausted," Wilson said. He felt better about himself already. The elevator arrived and emptied out. "I'll clear it with Cuddy. This is not a diagnostics problem." He stepped into the elevator, pulling Greg with him. "There aren't going to be any interesting patients arriving from the pool. No new patients will be coming in. If this situation lasts through the day, the clinic will be closed this evening, too. Just take a nap."

Chase and Foreman had evidently already followed the Code Yellow to the lobby. Wilson led Greg into his office, and watched as he sat down on the Eames chair, looking up at Wilson, almost wryly.

"I suppose if I get whipped for this, you'll be there to watch."

"I'll tell Cuddy you were doing what I told you," Wilson said. He was feeling benevolent enough to make him mellow, even looking forward to an afternoon and evening of boring, dull work. "I'll come up with sandwiches when I get a break. Go to sleep."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"You told Greg he could ignore the Code Yellow?" Cuddy said. By seven pm, the last of the 907 patients had gone, either home with a blue form or to the second floor for treatment. Wilson had spent six hours in the lobby and seen too many spectators and an entire swim team, including a 12-year-old girl - who was the only one out of the entire team to have been infected. He'd had one break: he'd picked up extra sandwiches and bottled water and taken them upstairs to Diagnostics. Greg had been asleep in the Eames chair, and hadn't woken even when Wilson came in and stood over him. Wilson had thought of touching him - in several ways, not all of them painful - but in the end, he'd gone away and left Greg peacefully still asleep, with the sandwiches and water on his desk within arm's reach.

"It was a resources problem, not diagnostics. They either had the symptoms of meningitis, or they didn't. Would one doctor really have made any difference?"

Cuddy shrugged. She looked tired, too. "No. Probably not. I went to see Doctor Cameron this morning. Have you tagged Greg?"

Wilson opened his mouth, closed it again.

Cuddy was watching him closely. "Have you told Greg you'd tag him?"

"Not... exactly."

"I'm asking," Cuddy said, "because Cameron had one condition for coming back to her job."

Wilson raised his eyebrows, fearing to put his question into words.

"She wants to go on a date with Greg."

Wilson's jaw dropped.

"She wants... what?"

"A date," Cuddy said. She didn't look amused. "She wants to go out to dinner with Greg. As a date."

"She's his fellow," Wilson said. "She can't tag him. Can she?"

"No," Cuddy said. "If she's on a Diagnostics fellowship here, she can't tag 'Doctor House'. But right now, she's accepted a position at Jefferson with Doctor Yale. I want her to come back: Greg hasn't fired anyone in months, he seems to think this team works well. I'll have the hospital pick up the bill for their meal at Caf Spiletto, and I'll have Greg dressed in something nice, and if Cameron returns to work - that's the end of that."

"You're sure about that?" Wilson said.

"No," Cuddy admitted. "But sure enough that I'll spring for the meal there personally if it doesn't work out."

"What if Cameron turns down the position in Diagnostics so that she _can_ tag Greg?" Wilson asked.

"Greg is likely to make himself sufficiently obnoxious during the meal that he'll put Cameron off," Cuddy said, and smiled, briefly. "As you doubtless noticed, when you took him to your hotel last night."

Wilson shook his head, "My wife's having an affair. I'm getting a divorce. This has nothing to do with Greg."

Cuddy was sympathetic. Very sympathetic. She didn't say a word about either of Wilson's previous failed marriages, and she didn't say anything more about Greg. But when Wilson left the hospital, at just after eight, he saw that Greg was in the clinic, which had re-opened for the evening. Wilson went back to his hotel bedroom, alone, and called Julie.

**_tbc_**

_oh-k! Illumim suggested this. I'm just three chapters writing from CollarRedux season one finale right now. IF you have questions about the 'verse, ask them in comments or PM and and I'll answer them (or not, lolololol) in an inter-season story / meta. So ppl who don't care about getting spoilers for the future of the story/universe can read it. Post your question, say if you want it answered "in character" (and who by) and promise I'll post it after C22 before I get posting season two.  
_


	20. 120 Love Hurts

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. Whee... AND another long chapter, sorry!  
_

**1.20 Love Hurts**

Wilson signed into the clinic for his two hours during Greg's morning shift. He wanted to watch Greg, uninterrupted by any serious work - morning clinic patients tended to be a light shift - and he wanted to think about Cameron.

Greg must have noticed him, but didn't look at him: in fact, when Wilson walked into his path, Greg turned abruptly right, and headed away from the examination room towards a vending machine. Wilson shrugged, and watched him go. He couldn't afford to do this too often: he didn't have Greg tagged (yet): and Julie shouldn't get any information about Greg if she called the hospital and tried to pry gossip out of the oncology department.

"Damn it!" Greg said, and Wilson glanced at him, startled.

He was standing facing off a patient - a young Korean man, carrying a cup, the contents of which were now mostly on Greg.

"I'm sorry," the young man said. He was backing away, looking wary. Greg was over six foot: he loomed over the younger man, and his cold stare could, Wilson remembered, appear intimidating.

Wilson sighed. Two security guards were heading for the situation, and Greg was heading for a whipping. He tucked his next patient's file under his arm, and walked over to Greg and the patient.

"I'm sorry," the young man said, helplessly. "I didn't - er, I didn't - " He was still backing away. Greg stood still. Wilson glanced over Greg's shoulder and realized the security guards were looming.

"Hey," Wilson said to the Korean guy, "my friend here would like to apologize."

Greg touched the wet stain with his fingers, lifted them to his nose. "Apple juice," he said. "I'm sorry," he added, to the Korean guy, and looked warily at the guards, who had stopped a few yards off.

The man turned his back and leaned up against the nearest wall and from his throat came a noise like sobbing. Greg frowned. He ignored Wilson: he ignored the guards. He fished a penlight out of his pocket, turned the man's face towards the light, and looked into his eyes. Only for a moment. He let go of the man's face and pressed his hand against the middle of his back, as if holding him there against the wall.

"Get a wheelchair," Greg said abruptly, to the nearest guard, and to Wilson, "and get this guy into the ER. He's having a stroke."

"What happened?"

"Right pupil's blown," Greg said.

"Holy shit," Wilson said, surprised. "You gave the guy a stroke?"

Greg gave him an odd look. "If I had, would I admit it?

An aide from ER arrived, and loaded the Korean man into a wheelchair. Greg said to the aide "Tell Doctor Foreman you've found a zebra," and went back to the clinic waiting room.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Foreman wasn't finding Chase any better company today than yesterday. He wouldn't have said he liked Cameron, but she diluted the locker-room effect. Chase wouldn't be telling the stupid joke about the bear and the rabbit if Cameron was here.

One of Foreman's ER nurses paged him. He got up with relief, and saw Cameron in the doorway. "Yo!" he said, surprised and pleased, as Chase got up, saying "Hey!" sounding pleased and surprised.

Cameron hugged him back. She looked pleased with herself.

Chase asked "What are you doing here?"

"I work here," Cameron said cheerfully.

"What, here in this office?"

"Cuddy practically begged me to come back."

"Tell me you took her to the cleaners," Chase said hopefully.

"Same lousy salary."

"Then why'd you do it?"

Foreman glanced over at the door. Greg was standing there, holding a file, eyeing the three of them.

"21-year-old male, visited the clinic because he was grinding his teeth, and panicked himself into a stroke in the waiting room," he said. "Doctor Cameron. Passing through, or here to stay?"

"Blown pupils usually means brain stem edema," Cameron offered.

"Sure," Greg said, limping over to the light board, brushing past Cameron with an odd look, "but since he s not dead or in a coma, I m going with stroke to the optic nerve." He put up CT scans on the board. "Two things."

Foreman looked, and saw the ischemia. "Death of brain tissue. Means there's been some damage, hopefully not permanent."

"And?" Doctor House, amused and sarcastic.

Foreman clenched his teeth, and looked again. House was observant, but not miraculously so. What he could see, Foreman could see. "That's it," he said. "There's nothing there to tell us what the underlying cause is. We've got to do an MRI."

"You're looking at the wrong part of the scan," House said.

"I'm looking at the brain," Foreman said tightly, "What else is there?"

"The jaw," Cameron said.

"The jaw tells us why he stroked?" Foreman said incredulously.

"No," Cameron said. "The jaw tells us why we can't do an MRI. Unless we want his jawbone flying across the room."

"Metal plate," House said. "He's had major reconstruction and there's no way we're removing it, so we're forced to be clever. Angiogram to rule out vascultis, EMG for peripheral neuropathy, tox screen to eliminate drugs, an echo to rule out cardiac emboli. Doctor Cameron, do you have treatment privileges at this hospital?"

"I work here," Cameron said.

"Here, in this department?"

"You hired me," Cameron said.

"You quit. How did Cuddy get you back?"

"I asked for a perk," Cameron said. She was smiling, pleased with herself. "And I got it."

"Am I going to find out what this 'perk' is?"

"Oh yes," Cameron said. She was smiling, wide and happy.

Greg looked at her oddly. He seemed tired. "Okay. Foreman, your ER nurse is slipping, I told her this was a zebra two hours ago. Get moving... " he glanced at Cameron again "...all three of you."

They all knew House could hear them out in the hall: Chase closed the door and started walking before he asked "What perks?"

Cameron all but smirked. "Nothing you'd be interested in." She was walking ahead of them down the corridor.

Thoughtfully, Foreman considered the options. "Not money. Office space, insurance, better parking... anything Cuddy could offer you, we d be interested in."

"Cuddy agreed House could go on a date with me."

Foreman stopped short. He glanced at Chase, whose mouth had opened, stunned: obviously he'd had no notion. "A date?" Cameron's smile, if anything, got broader.

"Date," Foreman clarified, "Dinner and a movie, naked and sweaty date?"

"We get to go out to dinner," Cameron said. "No committment to anything else."

"He's so, he's so old!" Chase said.

Cameron's smile got smugger. "And you're so young."

"It's a big mistake," Foreman said. Cameron might have lost track of it, but Greg was a slave: untagged, back at work as if he was a normal doctor, but collared property of the hospital. "Does he even know what you asked for?"

"Sure," Cameron said quickly. "Doctor Cuddy and I discussed it yesterday. It s my boss. I'm allowed to sexually harass my boss. I'll arrange for the EMG." She looked at Chase. "You want to set up the angiogram." She looked at Foreman, her eyes bright. "You get the blood samples, patient history, patient consent?" She walked off.

Foreman glanced back at the Diagnostics office. The door was closed. Chase was standing still, looking stunned and disgusted. "Like watching an accident about to happen," he said affably to Chase, and walked off to the admissions ward.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Chase had been staggering from disbelief to outright horror, since Vogler left.

It shouldn't have happened. None of it should have happened. How could any slave have dared make as insulting a speech - in public, on display, advertising his owner? How could any slave, especially one already at hazard of being sold or punished, have dared shout at his owner? How could it have happened, when a slave insulted Vogler, shouted at Vogler, that it would be _Vogler_ who left the hospital - why would any board vote to refuse a donation of a hundred million dollars, when the price was disciplining one wayward slave?

Chase couldn't see how he'd picked the wrong side. He'd done the sensible thing, all the way, and not out of any hostility to Greg, just because if Greg was going to survive, he had to knuckle under.

What made it worse was that the last time Greg had said a word to him about it was when he'd asked "So how can I work with you?" and Chase, with a confidence that now made him shudder, had answered "Well, you don't have a choice."

The new patient had been to a succession of alternative practicioners: acupuncturist, a Shen balancer, a homeopathic doctor, a chiropractor, and a naturopath. And he was seeing a semi-professional dominatrix regularly enough that she was at the hospital with him. Chase was veering between wondering if he should let someone know about Annette's alternative profession, and wondering when House was going to exercise his power to hire and fire: it was the first full-team DDX they'd done since Senator Wright.

"The EMG was clean," Cameron said.

House was studying the list of practicioners. "Well, based on this history it s either toxic herbs from the homeopath, spinal damage from the chiropractor, infection from the needle that the acupuncturist accidentally let sit in eye of newt, or the Shen balancer. What the hell is a 'shen' and how come it s lopsided?"

"The only abnormal test result we found was on the echo report," Foreman said. "Mitral valve prolapse."

House glanced at him, and back at the file. He said out loud, "Hang up a shingle and condemn the narrowness and greed of Western medicine, you d make a damn fine living."

Foreman sounded like he was gritting his teeth. Like the patient. "Clot s formed on a faulty valve, gets sent to the brain, voila! Stroke."

"Of course, no harm, no foul," House said thoughtfully. "It's just taking a few bucks from superstitious idiots, right?"

Chase breathed in. If he came up with the right diagnosis, House wouldn't fire him: and no one but him knew that there was likely trauma involved, regular, repeated trauma. "Could also be an aneurysm due to trauma."

Foreman looked at him incredulously. "Trauma? From what, the chiropractic treatments? It's bacterial endocarditis, an infected valve. We should do blood cultures."

"Except the six months that he had with these charlatans might have been spent going to someone who looks at things that exist in the real world. But that s just me being all narrow again," House said, apparently not listening to either Chase or Foreman. He was looking at Cameron, and there was a faint, puzzled frown on his face.

"I noticed a small bruit when I listened to Harvey s left carotid," Chase said. "You could hear that if you had an aneurysm from trauma."

Cameron was still looking very happy, but she sounded quite professional. "Aneurysm would have shown on the angiogram."

"No, not necessarily," Chase said.

House looked at him. "Hmm. Quite a dilemma." He sounded shockingly normal, though this was the first thing he'd said to Chase directly in weeks. He picked up the ball that Chase had been playing with. "Oh, great pool hall oracle, grant me guidance." From House's hands, the ball flipped up and described a neat semi-circle, from left hand to right, and back again. "Do we go with Foreman s theory, which is at least marginally supported by medical test results, or Chase s theory, which is completely unsupported by medical evidence. What to do..."

Chase decided. Being right about a diagnosis always scored points with House, always had in the past, even when House wouldn't accept it first off. "The guy obviously broke his jaw somehow. Who knows what other trauma he's suffered? We should do the angiogram again."

"And all signs point to..." House flipped the ball directly upwards, caught it in the palm of one hand, looked at it intently, and said "Sorry, Chase. The gods have spoken. Start Harvey on blood thinners and antibiotics."

He waved his hand, plainly dismissing all three of them. His eyes lingered on Cameron, and Chase caught again the tiny frown. Whatever Cameron thought, this wasn't going to win her any points with House.

They were walking towards the diagnostics ward. The blinds were down, indicating there was a procedure being performed or the patient needed a bedpan.

Cameron still had a smile on her face. Foreman looked uneasy. Chase said irritably, "I get it. House is adorable. I just want to hold him and never let go."

Cameron opened the door. Annette had her hand on the patient's throat. He was choking and struggling for breath.

In an explosion of indignation, Foreman and Cameron grabbed her and pulled her away. Foreman was holding on to her hard enough to bruise. Chase stood by the doorway, feeling uncomfortable. He closed the door. ""Stop. Let her go."

"She was trying to kill him!" Foreman said, angrily.

The patient had recovered from the choking. He said in a hoarse voice, "No. No, she wasn t."

Cameron was checking the screens, and the patient's pulse. "His vitals seem okay."

"Please," the patient said. "Please don't hurt her."

Foreman and Cameron were looking at the patient with complete bewilderment. Foreman had let go of Annette, at least.

"She's..." Chase swallowed "She s a dominatrix. Right, Annette?"

Both Cameron and Foreman were now looking at him with astonishment. And at this point, hospital security arrived.

Annette went off with the security, against the patient's protests, after Foreman and Cameron had described accurately what they had seen. Annette had grasped the point that she needed to go talk to the hospital administration, and left the patient with the admonition to "Be good, Harvey".

"I said I thought it was a trauma induced aneurysm," Chase said.

"Yeah," Foreman agreed. The three of them went back in the Diagnostics meeting room: House wasn't there, more or less to Chase's relief, even if he could now admit the basis for his diagnosis of head trauma.

"And you know this woman from where?" Foreman asked.

Chase had already had time to think out how to put it. Fatal to say anything, in America, that made it sound like you were a bottom. "It was a long time ago. I was seeing this woman. A banker, and turns out she liked to be burned." This was actually true, but she'd never asked Chase to burn her, because he'd never got the hang of playing with fire.

Cameron had been studying him with an expression of disgusted concern, as near as Chase could interpret it: "You actually dated someone who likes to get burned?"

Foreman grinned. "Yeah, why would you want to be in a relationship with someone that's so obviously only going to lead to pain?"

"Shut up," Cameron recommended briefly.

"It was a weird scene," Chase admitted, seamlessly. "I observed..."

None of them had noticed House coming along the corridor until he jerked the door open and looked directly at Chase.

"Did you know about this woman? What she does?"

Chase shrugged. "I met her at some parties, yeah," he said, insouciently.

"Well, here's a phrase to remember," House said abruptly. Hey, this guy might have been pounded on the head one too many times!

"I said I thought it was a trauma induced aneurysm," Chase reminded him.

"Yeah, could have carried a tad more weight if you d mentioned the 'liking pain' thing," House said. "I assume you never started him on antibiotics or blood thinners before Mistress Ilsa s rude interruption."

"It was probably a good thing," Cameron said.

"Start him on antibiotics and blood thinners," House ordered.

"You still think Chase is wrong?" Cameron asked.

House looked faintly surprised. "No, he s probably right."

Chase was relieved. "Then we should schedule him for vascular surgery. Go into the carotids, find the aneurysm, repair it." And they couldn't do that on blood thinners, because he might bleed out.

"But if Foreman's right about it being bacterial endocarditis, and we "

Foreman interrupted. "I think Chase is right."

House glanced at him. "Okay, if you _used_ to be right about it being blood clots, and we take the surgery route, then we ll probably kill the guy. So, start him on blood thinners, and if he has another stroke, then we ll schedule the surgery." He waved his hand, plainly dismissing all three of them. Then said, quickly, "Doctor Cameron, a word?"

Chase went on. He wanted to hear what House had to say, but he guessed Cameron would let it out later.

But before the door closed, he heard House say, not angrily, but bleakly, "I'd appreciate you keeping the terms of your new contract to yourself. Don t want everyone clamoring for the same perks."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Annette Raines," the woman said, offering her hand to be shaken.

"She committed an assault on the patient," the security guard said. "Doctors Cameron and Foreman confirmed it."

"No, I didn't," Raines said, quite calmly. "I'm a dominatrix. Harvey asked me to throttle him to calm him down. Doctor Chase will confirm that."

Cuddy took a deep breath. This was a plain mess. She said to her PA, "Get me Henry Walker," - he was the most flexible lawyer they had on the hospital retainer - "and fetch Doctor House." She'd need to speak to him anyway, now Cameron was back.

Standing orders were that whenever security needed to fetch Greg, they sent guards who were taller and broader than him: and he usually wasn't allowed a cane. "Tell them it's not urgent," she added, which was was hospital code for allowing Greg to walk under his own power with his cane.

"Would you like coffee?" she asked Raines, who shook her head. "Is this likely to take long?"

"We just need to resolve this," Cuddy said vaguely, and nodded to her PA to get Raines settled: Walker would take twenty minutes to get to her office.

Greg was delivered to her door in fifteen minutes, wearing a clean roll-top: Henry Walker arrived five minutes later. Cuddy directed Greg to the seat by her desk

"Ms Raines, could you explain what you did to Harvey Parks a little under an hour ago?" Cuddy asked, sat back, and folded her hands.

"The patient asked you to strangle him?" Walker said, sounding remarkably inflexible.

"Harvey is an asphyxiaphyliac," Raines said calmly. "He likes to be strangled or smothered."

Walker jerked his head back."That's just sick."

"Well, that s an intriguing legal opinion," Greg said, his tone of voice conveying the exact opposite.

Walker turned and stared at Greg, dismissing him. He looked back at Cuddy. "You want a legal opinion? Call the cops."

"I was careful," Raines said, very calmly. "I watched the monitors, made sure his O2 stats were over 90. I would never hurt him."

"Then what was the point?" Greg said. He sounded hostile. Of course Raines was not donor, patient, or staff: and she had apparently tried to harm one of the patients. Cuddy decided she could let the tone gone.

"Harvey was upset," Raines said, looking Greg over. "He needed to calm down. To feel in control by being controlled."

Cuddy nearly choked. She got her voice under control. "He pays you for this?"

Raines nodded, smiling. "In return, he does my taxes and cleans my house."

Greg positioned his cane, and stood up.

"We're not done here," Cuddy said sharply.

"Call the cops," Greg said, "bar her from the hospital, force her to pierce your nipples... not really medical decisions."

"Sit down," Cuddy said. She moved her hand to the phone.

Greg sat. He lifted his chin and looked at her, warily.

"Can you prove that Parks asked you to do this to him?" Walker said, having had time to think.

"Yes," Raines said. "I have letters, e-mails... even a contract, agreeing to exchange house cleaning and tax advice for my services."

"We should get confirmation from the patient himself that this was voluntary," Walker said. "You should ask Ms Raines to provide documentary evidence of their relationship. Subject to that, my advice is that it's not worth pressing charges."

Cuddy nodded. "Thank you."

"But my advice is that you ban Ms Raines from the hospital," Walker added.

"Harvey needs me," Raines said.

"Doctor House?"

Greg lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Got to admit, I'm medically biased against choking," he said. "Even if you check the chokee's O2 stats."

Cuddy nodded. "I'm afraid that subject to legal and medical advice, and as you're not Harvey's next of kin - "

"He doesn't have any family," Raines said.

" - I am going to have to ask you to leave the hospital, and not come back. The staff will be warned against admitting you."

Raines looked at her, glanced at Walker, and really stared at Greg. "I could come back if Harvey says I'm his next-of-kin?"

"I'll take legal advice on whether this could be considered a domestic abuse situation," Cuddy said.

"Yes," Walker interrupted.

Raines nodded. She gathered herself up. "See you later," she said pleasantly, and went out.

Walker harrumphed. "Sick bitch."

Greg looked up, but didn't speak. When Walker had left, Cuddy said "Doctor Cameron agreed to come back to work on one condition."

"I gathered," Greg said. "She said she'd asked for a 'perk'."

Cuddy hesitated, and said baldly, "She asked permission to have a date with you."

Greg's head jerked back. His mouth opened. His eyes went wide. Only for an instant: he was truly surprised.

"I've booked a table for two at Cafe Spiletto, this evening," Cuddy said. "Seven pm. You'll be allowed to miss clinic duty for that evening. Doctor Cameron will hold that evening's oxycontin dose, if she wishes. If not, you'll just have to do without until the car returns you to the hospital. A security guard will drive the car and wait outside the restaurant. You'll clean up and report here at five pm for appropriate clothing. Questions?"

Greg shook his head. He stood up, unsteadily, his gaze fixed on her.

"She can't... tag me?"

"If she's working as a Diagnostics fellow, she can't tag you," Cuddy agreed.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

By five pm, Cuddy had two distressed parents in her office who had been told that their son was dead, and had got to the hospital to discover he was still alive - and this time she sent the security guards for Greg with orders that it was urgent. They were quite clear that they'd spoken to a man who identified himself as Doctor House. Cuddy summoned Walker, too.

Greg hadn't showered, either.

"You lied to them!" Cuddy said. For Greg to lie to a patient's family, if the family complained, was a standard administrative 10 lashes.

"He told us our son was dead," Mrs. Park said loudly.

Ten lashes tonight meant Cameron couldn't get the "date" she'd wanted: putting it off wasn't a good idea; putting off the whipping was bad practice.

Greg was leaning on his cane, holding a pink hospital form and a pen in his other hand. He eyed her warily, but sounded unnaturally cheerful: he was directing his remarks to the parents. "It's only a white lie. Technically, all I did was call them a little early. Trust me, he'll be dead real soon. Actually, I saved you some rush hour traffic."

Mrs Park pulled out her cell phone. "I'm calling our lawyer."

If a lawyer was involved, that meant admitting Greg was a slave - the hospital never lied about Greg's status - and that meant the parents could themselves demand a more serious punishment. Greg could be putting himself out of action for a week.

"Fine," Greg said. He put the form down on the tble in front of them. "Just as soon as you sign this surgery consent."

The father stared at the form, and Greg, in silent disbelief. Greg added, "I have a pen," and put it down on the table.

"Marilyn Park for Mark Lerner. Yes, I'll hold."

"Harvey's your son," Cuddy said. The form needed to get signed: fortunately Greg wasn't a surgeon. "I'm sure you still care about him."

Mr Park opened his mouth for the first time. "He humiliated us. Everybody we know knows about his perversion."

Greg leaned forward on his cane. He wasn't looking at Cuddy any more. "But you don't get off on embarrassment the way your son does. I guess it skips a generation."

Cuddy and Walker shared a look. Walker said, in business-like tones, "How much money would it take to compensate you - "

"Yeah, you guys can haggle in a minute," Greg said. "But here's the thing. Humiliation comes in all kinds of packages. People finding out that your son s a perv and a bottom, that s pretty high up there. People finding out that you'd rather let your son die than sign a piece of paper, where s that rank?" He grinned like a dog, showing all of his teeth. "And trust me, if I have to paste up a sign in every nail salon and dumpling shop in Pennsylvania, I'll make sure they know."

There was a pause. Cuddy watched, astonished, as she saw Mr and Mrs Park visibly reconsider. After a long moment, Mrs Park switched off her cell phone, picked up the pen, and signed. Greg picked up the form. "Your son will be in surgery first thing in the morning."

Cuddy summoned her PA, got the form to the surgeon, and had Greg sit down. Without acknowledging that he was a slave, she and Walker danced the Parks through an apology from the hospital, an audibly insincere apology from Greg, and their acceptance of compensation for their time in coming to New Jersey. When they left, Greg got up to go.

"It's after five," Cuddy said. "You're not going anywhere." She nodded dismissal to Walker. "Tell security to come in."

Greg's knuckles were white on his cane. "Dumplings," he said. "that was a cheap shot."

"Lying to a patients' parents," Cuddy said. "You know what that means."

Greg jerked a nod. He swallowed.

"Ten lashes. But," Cuddy said, "given the circumstances, I might cancel it." Vogler had said he didn't think whipping Greg was effective for disciplining him. "Whatever Cameron wants from you, what I want is for her to function as an effective member of the Diagnostics team. If she's still working here ... a month from tomorrow, and I've heard no more from her about tagging you, I'll cancel the whipping. Unless you've done something else to deserve being whipped for in between now and then." She entered it on her calendar, letting Greg see her do it, and smiled at him. "Bear in mind that she's probably the only female who'd tolerate you."

The security guards were standing at the back of the room. Cuddy nodded to them to come forward. There was a bag of clothes beside her desk: she handed it to one of them. "Greg needs to get cleaned up, groomed, and dressed. Do not leave any visible marks on him. I want him back in my office before seven."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson stepped out of his office at half past five. Julie was expecting him at home to pack up clothes at six. His lawyer had advised him not to stay for dinner. Tonight was Cameron's "date" with Greg.

Two security guards were walking Greg along the corridor. Except that he wasn't struggling, it looked just like when they were taking him off for a whipping. Except that they were heading towards Diagnostics, not away from it.

"What's going on?" Wilson asked.

"Doctor Cuddy wants this groomed, cleaned, and dressed for going out, in her office, in an hour." One of the guards was carrying a dry-cleaning bag. Greg was standing, head down.

"Oh yes," Wilson said. He took the bag away from the guard. "Look, bring him to my office once he's cleaned up and shaved. I can handle getting him dressed." It would make him late for Julie. But it would be worth it.

Greg's head lifted. He looked at Wilson. He looked disturbed. Wilson smiled.

Along with the suit, there was a clean blue shirt, a tie, and clean socks and undershorts. Wilson hung up the suit and shirt on one of the hangers he used for his own office change of clothes. The guards delivered him back to Wilson's office wrapped in a towel, still wet, only ten minutes later.

"I can manage from here," Wilson said. "Come back in half an hour."

The towel was wrapped round Greg's waist. His hands pressed against it. He was shivering. Wilson walked round him. Greg's back was covered in faint lines - marks from judicial whippings. The dark metal of his collar stood out harshly against the white skin.

"I want you to know it's okay," Wilson said, reassuringly. He took hold of the towel, pulled it away from Greg's hips, and began to pat-dry his back. The skin still felt smooth. "Cameron asked for you. I get it. She can't tag you. I still want to. I'm not mad about this. It's an evening out for you. Have fun."

He had cologne in his office. The guards had shaved Greg, pretty well: heavy beard meant Greg tended to look unshaved most of the time. The clothes Cuddy had bagged for Greg looked good on him: Wilson said so.

"Open doors for her, help her with her chair " Wilson was knotting the tie for Greg.

"I've been on a date before," Greg said.

"Not since disco died," Wilson said. "Comment on her shoes, her earrings, and then move on to D.H.A." He grinned at Greg. "Her dreams, hopes and aspirations. Trust me. Panty-peeler."

Greg's eyes widened. His face was otherwise expressionless. Wilson's smile got wider. "And if you need condoms, I've got some." The last free sample a drug rep had left: condoms with built-in antibiotics. He tucked two into the inner pocket of Greg's suit. "You look good. She'll like you. Want a drink before you go out? Settle your nerves."

"Can I get my cane?" Greg asked.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The restaurant wasn't crowded. Doctor House was already there. The waiter walked Cameron to the table, and left them there with the menus and the wine list.

"You look very handsome," Cameron said.

"Thank you," House said.

Cameron looked around. She'd been here two or three times. "I've always loved this restaurant."

"Yeah," House said. "It's changed a lot since the last time I was here. It used to be a strip joint."

Cameron laughed, though with a twinge of sadness. She didn't know how often House was let out of the hospital, but it wasn't often. If this worked out, even if she wasn't allowed to tag him - she didn't want to tag him - maybe they could do this more often. Just her and House.

"Nice earrings," House said.

"My mom's," Cameron said, surprised. She didn't wear jewellery much at work, but House never commented on anyone's personal appearance except to make a joke. "Thank you."

"Nice shoes," House added. "Comfortable?"

He'd commented on her shoes at her interview. Not like this. This didn't sound like House, but like standard instructions on dating. "I'm not expecting you to be someone you re not," Cameron said. She picked up the wine list. She wanted to order champagne, but would that be overstating?

"We're in a restaurant, we're dressed up, we're eating," House said. He picked up the menu and looked at it, and almost immediately put it down again. "If not small talk, what is there?"

The waiter came back. House stumbled over his orders twice: Cameron already knew what she was having. "And champagne, please." She pointed to the bottle she wanted. The hospital was paying for dinner; she could spring for the good stuff.

"You ever been married?" Cameron asked.

House was silent for a few seconds. "I lived with someone for a while."

"When I was in college, I... I fell in love, and I got married. And..."

"At that age the chances of a marriage lasting - " House started.

"It lasted six months." Cameron had talked about this with therapists, friends, even lovers. She had learned to say it evenly, without tears. "Thyroid cancer metastasized to his brain."

House stared at her. "So that's why..." he said. He didn't finish the sentence. He was staring at her, assessingly, eyes very wide and very blue. He was completely silent.

The waiter came back with champagne. Cameron almost wished she hadn't ordered it. The waiter got the wire hood off, and the cork out, expertly, with hardly a pop. But the small sound seemed unnaturally celebratory.

"But that s not the whole story," House said. "It's a symptom, not your illness. Thyroid cancer would have been diagnosed at least a year before his death, you knew he was dying when you married him."

Cameron swallowed. She hadn't expected this. No one ever said this. Yes, she'd known Ted was dying. It had been part of his dark glamor among their circle of friends, the young man who wouldn't be alive this time next year.

"Must have been when you first met him. And you married him anyway. You loved him because he was dying."

Cameron jerked her head back. House was still looking at her, assessing and almost professional. "Oh, I'm sure he was lovable in other ways. But he could have been cute as a sackful of puppies and you wouldn't have married him if he'd been going to live."

Cameron looked away. She turned the champagne glass in her hands, looking at the bubbles. "According to Freud, and I'm paraphrasing, instinct of love toward an object demands a mastery to obtain it, and if a person feels they can t control the object or feel threatened by it, they act negatively toward it. Like an eighth-grade boy punching a girl."

She looked back at House. He was smirking, faintly.

"I treat you like garbage, so I must really like you. Given your Freudian theory, what does it mean if I start being nice to you?"

Cameron smiled back. "That you re getting in touch with your feelings."

House hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat. "So there s absolutely nothing I can do to make you think that I don't like you."

"Sorry, no," cameron said. "I have one evening with you, one chance, and I don't want to waste it talking about what wines you like or what movies you hate. I want to know how you feel about me."

House shrugged. He leaned forward, resting his chin on his hands, and said, as meticulously as if delivering a diagnosis, "You live under the delusion that you can fix everything that isn t perfect. That's why you married a man who was dying of cancer. You don't love, you need. And now that your husband is dead, you re looking for your new charity case. That s why you re interested in me. I'm twice your age, I'm not great looking, I'm not charming, I'm not free, I'm not even nice. What I am is what you need. I m damaged."

The waiter returned with the starters. House started to eat. After a moment, as if he'd said nothing out of the way, he commented on the food, and Cameron heard herself responding.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Robert had got her a set of nurse's scrubs. Nothing else - no staff ID, no badge, and no guarantee that she wouldn't get kicked out. But, as he'd noted, there was nothing illegal about walking into a hospital wearing nurse's scrubs to see a friend. Annette had promised that even if Harvey asked for it repeatedly, she wouldn't choke him while he was a patient.

It worked. She could sit with Harvey for as long as she liked, so long as whenever anyone came in, she was on her feet checking the screens.

The door opened; a doctor came in, walking with a cane. "Hi, I'm Doctor House," he said.

Robert's boss. Annette kept her back turned.

The doctor said "How's tricks, Annette?"

Annette turned. Robert had warned her she'd have to go without fuss if she was recognized: the hospital still had her under an unofficial ban.

"I just wanted to see if he was okay. I'll leave."

"No, it's okay," Doctor House said. He looked them both over. "I came to talk to you both."

He walked over to the bed and looked down at Harvey.

"Like I tell all my patients, you've simply got to say 'no' to strangulation. Me, I m a freak, I get off on not being in pain. That, and chocolate-covered marshmallow bunnies."

"He's not a freak," Annette said, quick to defend. There were few words that pissed her off more.

Doctor House looked her over, and down at Harvey. He shrugged. "Yeah, he is. A little. But it's got to stop. Or he'll die."

It was hard to argue with that. Harvey had liked being choked all his life. Annette had always been careful. But Harvey wouldn't have broken his jaw if he'd always been with careful people.

"It's not about pain," Annette said. "It's about being open, being completely vulnerable to another person."

Doctor House's face was still. His eyes were fixed and cold. For an instant, he looked scary.

"If you can learn to be that deeply trusting... it changes you."

The look dissolved. The doctor smirked. "Well, lock him in a cage. That should be fine, medically." He turned to go.

Harvey's voice was very weak. He could hardly move his jaw. "Doctor House. Were my parents here? Did they come to see me?"

Annette took hold of his hand. She couldn't say it would be all right. Harvey's parents didn't want to know him. And the one thing he'd had that had always made him feel safe, he was told he couldn't have. When she looked up again, Doctor House was gone.

**_*tbc*_**


	21. 121 Three Stories

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". Assuming I can keep it up, there's going to be one chapter per episode, based on the episode. When I'm done with season one, I'll declare CollarRedux a complete story... and move on to CollarRedux2, second season stories. This may look like H/S for a while, but the overall story is always going to be House/Wilson... just like the series, lololol.  
_

**1.21 Three Stories**

_He's so thin._

She'd even wondered if she would recognize him. She'd had some bad dreams about that. Lisa Cuddy had said, the only time they'd spoken since the bad time, _He's changed. You wouldn't know him._

He was thinner than before. Just as tall. Walked with a cane. She knew him.

"House," she said.

He had been heading towards the lecture-theater doors, bypassing the clinic. He stopped when he heard her voice, turned, and stilled. His eyes were very wide in his thin face, and there were lines that hadn't been there before. There were tiny streaks of grey in his hair. He looked at her as if she was about to hit him - as if she had already hit him - and she thought, as all the bad dreams ran away on meeting reality, that she would have known him anywhere.

"Hi, Stacy," he said.

She walked up to him. He was resting both hands on his cane, planted in front of him. His wary look did not change.

"How're you doing?" The words came out of her mouth automatically. She wanted to weep and she wanted to hold him.

"How am I doing?" House echoed her words. He didn't smile. "Well, the last five years have been like... you ever see those 'Girls Gone Wild' videos?"

"Your life's been like that, or your life's been spent watching them?"

Ten years ago, she had fallen in love with him when they both laughed at the same moment, at something someone else had said that no one else seemed to think was funny, including the person who said it. Five years ago, she'd fallen in love with Mark in a shared laugh. The shared laugh had whittled down to a shared smile, but they still had it.

"I have missed you," she said.

House went tense. "Is that why you're here?"

She had known she couldn't have House and Mark. She'd chosen Mark: the most rational and most painful decision she'd ever made. Not coming back to see House had been an act of self-preservation. She would never have come back just because she missed him.

She shook her head, not knowing whether that would hurt him more, but she couldn't lie to him. "I need your help." She handed him the bundle of papers and films, the essential information for Mark's life. He had to shift his stick to one hand to take them. The free clinic's reception counter was a few steps away: he went over to lay the records out on the desk, and she watched him walking.

When Cuddy had tried to persuade her to come back, she had said they had removed a large piece of dead muscle from his right thigh. He was still lame five years later. He used the stick on his right side, an odd balancing act that looked strangely graceful: he was still an athlete, even crippled.

She saw his head begin to turn, and joined him at the counter.

"Who am I looking at?" he asked.

"My husband."

His face was impassive. His voice had an edge of pain in it that he couldn't disguise. "Who is suffering abdominal pain and fainting spells. No sign of tumors, no vasculitis. Could be indigestion, or maybe a kidney stone. A little one, can pack a lot of wallop."

"There is no kidney stone, no indigestion. Three hospitals, five doctors, not one of them found anything."

House turned away from the files spread out on the counter. He looked at her. "Well, maybe there's nothing to be found."

"Right, you suddenly trust doctors, love puppies and long walks in the rain."

He shook his head. She was standing between him and the lecture-hall doors: he stepped to one side to get round her. "The walks are out."

It took a moment to gather the records up again, and in that moment, he'd managed to get surprisingly far across the foyer. Stacy caught up with him and stood in front of him again. He turned his head away.

"I was around you long enough to know when something s not right. Mark's had personality changes, he's acting strange, disconnected..."

"Interesting," House said. He was still looking across the foyer, not looking at her. "It means there's either a neurological component or he's having an affair."

"No affair, no nothing!" Stacy wanted to grab him, shake him, but - all his body language was defensive. Scared. As if he expected her to do that. "He's sick! I'm asking you a favor."

"I understand that." House looked at her, seeming to drink the sight of her in. "I'm not sure I want him to live." He set off towards the lecture-room doors, adding, briefly, as he passed her "It's good seeing you again."

A security guard was standing at her elbow. She realized she had been standing, staring, watching him go, with her eyes full of tears, in the middle of a crowded foyer.

"Ma'am, are you all right?"

"Yes," she said, automatically. The guard must be since her time. He was even taller than House, forcing her to look up at him a long way, but he sounded kind.

"Did you want to lay a complaint?" he asked. He jerked a hand at the lecture-room doors, and she saw House had reached them and was about to enter. "He say something inappropriate?"

"No," Stacy said. She supposed she should go see Lisa Cuddy. But putting the request for Diagnostics services on a formal level meant ... technically, it meant House had no right to refuse. She'd never done that to him before. She didn't want to do it to him now. If he was filling in for one of the lecturers, he'd be done in an hour or so. She could wait. "No," she said. "He said nothing that wasn't ... appropriate."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Doctor Riley had missed five lectures so far this academic year: his replacement was, three times out of five, the skinny white doctor who walked with a cane.

Diagnosing from leg pain was the theme of the lecture: a couple of the front-row students were arguing with him about the right way to handle a patient, claiming huge pain, who appeared to be doing it for Demerol.

"No," the lecturer said, "you did exactly what his attending did."

"And that was the proper way to handle the case?"

"Yeah."

"The guy used him as a dealer!"

"You're going to see a lot of drug-seeking behavior in your practice, and there's a reason: it works. In this instance, when the hospital looked into this guy's work record, they decided he might have reasons to want to get high right then, and they gave him two days off work with bed rest and a heat pad so that if there was a muscle strain it could get better, and whether or not there was, he could get bored. Let's move on to the farmer - "

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Doctor Cuddy, Stacy Warner is here," her PA said.

"Well, send her in," Cuddy said. She was doing paperwork, and would have been glad of an interruption.

"She's not here to see you. I think. She's just waiting in the lobby."

"Waiting? For who?"

"According to Nurse Previn, she tried to show Greg some patient records. They exchanged a few words, and then Greg went on to give the lecture."

There were hospital rules about non-staff non-patients non-relatives who spent too long in the lobby: someone just hanging about was a concern for the security staff. None of those concerns applied to Warner, who was presumably just waiting for Greg to finish the lecture, but Cuddy didn't like to just decree that rules shouldn't apply.

"Ask her if she'd like to see me in my office," Cuddy said. "If not, ask her if she'd like to wait in the staff canteen."

If there was a patient Stacy wanted diagnosed, she would have to talk to Cuddy sooner or later.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"...drug addicts are stupid."

"I'd call the cops."

"Good for you. A lot of doctors wouldn't risk their careers on a hunch."

The white student at the front sounded confused. "It's not a hunch, I mean, I know he wants drugs."

"I believe drug addicts get sick," the lecturer said. "Actually, for some reason they tend to get sick more often than non-drug addicts. Luckily, you don t have to play your hunch, there s a faster way. Actually, there are several. My preference is urine testing."

"But you already know he has drugs in his system."

"That s not what you're testing for." The lecturer shifted a little in his seat. "What this hospital's practice is, with walk-ins or slaves who claim they're sick and there's good reason to assume they're lying to get drugs, is to test their urine at source with a catheter up the urethra into the bladder, without anesthetic. If a person can handle a rod through the urethra for half an hour, they're really sick."

"Or really jonesing."

"There's easier ways to get hold of drugs."

The lecturer had been crayoning a spot on a piece of paper: he held it up to the class. It was ugly: a brownish, orangish blob.

"What would you call that? That's tea-colored, right? The guy who we thought was just after the drugs... what's the differential diagnosis for urine that s tea-colored?"

"Kidney stone," one of the other front-row students said.

"Kidney stones would cause what?"

"Blood in urine."

"What color is your pee?"

"Yellow."

"What color is your blood?"

"Red."

"What colors did I use?"

"Red, yellow and brown."

"And brown. What causes brown?"

"Wastes." The front-row kid was sounding increasingly anxious, because this lecturer's pattern was to ask obvious questions with obvious answers that were mostly right until the last one was wrong and the lecturer blew up. That was why back row was a good place to sit in Riley's class, at least until he stopped being sick all the time.

So far none of the answers had been wrong.

"Which means the kidneys are shutting down. Why?"

"Trauma."

"None that his history would indicate."

"Could be damage done by the self-injection of the Demerol."

"Treatment?"

"Heat and rest - "

"Other possible causes."

"Infection."

"Start him on antibiotics. What else?"

The front-row student hesitated. The lecturer's voice was ramping up, indicating he was on the verge of a blow-up, but so far all the answers had been obvious and right.

"Come on, come on!" the lecturer said, nearly exploding.

"I - I don t know," the kid said.

"You're useless," the lecturer said. "But at least you know it. Blood tests show elevated creatine kinase, what does that tell you?"

The white student who'd argued said "The trauma diagnosis is right. He takes it easy for a few days, he'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"The elevated CK rules out infection - "

"You know what's worse than useless? Useless and oblivious." The lecturer looked at another front-row student, the brown-noser. "What are they missing?"

"You know, it's kind of hard to think when you're in our face like this - " This was something everyone in the class had wanted to say to skinny white cane-guy at some point: it was hard to think when he blew up, and he blew up at least once a class.

"Yeah? You think it's going to be easier when you've got a real patient really dying?" He looked at the whole room, seeming to take in every student. "_What are you missing?_"

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The woman in the staff canteen with a pile of papers and films in front of her wasn't on the staff: she was beautiful, and she was crying. She looked familiar, though Wilson couldn't remember where from.

Wilson had been dealing with tears from Julie every time he went home, angry tears, exploding rage, tearful rows - Julie couldn't get over her husband hiring a PI to prove she was having an affair, she kept coming back to it, the lack of trust, the betrayal, the humiliation of being shown the photographs by her own lawyer -

This woman was crying about as little as someone in a public place could be crying. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she blotted them carefully with a napkin.

A empty cup with a teabag in the saucer stood in front of her. When Wilson got to the cash register, he ordered a tea and a coffee: they had carrot cake, and he chose a slice.

"Excuse me," Wilson said, "I noticed you'd finished your tea." He put the fresh cup, and the plate with the cake, in front of her. She looked up, startled, and he saw the name on one of the papers: WARNER. She was the woman in the photograph Greg had kept.

He'd meant to nod and walk on. He really had.

"Sorry," he said. "I work here - I'm one of the doctors on staff."

"I used to work here," she said. Her voice was hoarse. "A few years ago."

"Doctor Wilson. I'm head of oncology." He held out his hand.

She shook it; "Oh yes. Doctor Martin must finally have retired."

"Last year."

"It took him that long?" She smiled, briefly. "Good to meet you. I'm Stacy Warner - I'm a lawyer."

"James Wilson."

"James? Or Jim?"

"James. Thanks for asking."

"I used to know a guy who hated being called 'Gregory'," she said, as if that was an explanation.

Wilson shrugged with a little frown, as if he hadn't heard the name. He picked up his coffee cup and made to move on.

"Do you want your cake?"

"I bought it for you," Wilson said, turning back. He smiled at her. "I don't know if your problems are beyond cake, but I thought it couldn't hurt."

"Oh, let's share it," Warner said. "I shouldn't eat a whole piece of that."

Wilson collected a second plate, a knife, and another fork: with dexterity, he managed to get half the slice on to the second plate.

"You know, they served carrot cake like this five years ago," Warner said. "I think they get it from a local bakery. I never tried to find out. I used to buy myself a slice, and then a... friend would come by and he'd eat easily half the slice. From my plate."

"I would have told him to buy his own cake," Wilson said. (Greg?) He was lying: he could see Greg doing that, and, like Warner, he would probably have enjoyed watching Greg stealing mouthfuls of cake and fingerfuls of cream frosting.

Warner half-smiled and shrugged. "How long have you worked here?"

"For two years," Wilson said. "I was hired with a view to Doctor Martin's retirement. Are you coming back to work here?"

"No," Warner said. "I left ... I never planned to work in New Jersey again."

"Whoa. Trouble with the Mafia?"

Warner laughed. "You could say I was getting away from ... a friend."

Wilson looked at her. "Is this the friend who used to steal your cake? Moving state seems a rather drastic way of dealing with a cake-thief."

She was still smiling, but tears were overflowing again. Her voice was controlled, a little hoarse. "I met someone else. Someone I had a future with. I thought ... a clean break was best. I heard he'd been hurt, after I left, but I just saw him... "

"And you came in here in search of tea," Wilson said sympathetically.

"Yes," Warner said. She drank the tea. "Thank you."

Wilson ate his half of the cake, and drank coffee. Greg was lecturing this morning. Doctor Riley was off sick. Greg was wary and careful around Wilson, but Cameron wasn't the problem: Greg had been delivered back to the hospital in good time, and claimed his oxycontin tablets from the pharmacy, hours after his usual time.

Cameron was an idiot. Cameron was a fellowship holder. Cameron wasn't the problem.

If Warner still meant anything to Greg, she was a problem.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Warner had said explicitly that she didn't want to see Cuddy, her PA reported on return, but she'd gone to the canteen readily, and he'd settled her at a table with some tea.

"When Greg's done with his lecture, bring him here. Not urgent."

Maybe Vogler had been right. Maybe letting Warner tag Greg had been a bad move. But for five years, it had worked. Greg had worked hard, seemed happy, seemed contented.

Maybe when Warner had left they ought to have put Greg under strict discipline immediately. But it had seemed natural enough that Greg would react badly, it had seemed unreasonable to whip him for acting out grief and loss. When he complained of leg pain, to one of the other clinic doctors, Cuddy would have assumed he was using muscular strain as an excuse to get high on something stronger than he could access himself.

When it was clear he was really, genuinely sick, Cuddy had tried to get Warner to come back - and Warner had said no.

Cuddy picked up a pen and played with it. She never had said to Warner explicitly, "He could die: come back if you want to see him while he's still alive." Greg was a _slave_. Warner had never known him when he was free.

Technically, he had died. The millions of dollars he was worth, the hundreds of thousands they had invested in him at that point, had very nearly all turned into a carcass worth an interesting dissection and a complicated insurance claim, given their insurers could claim it was carelessness on the part of his owner that had killed him. According to the nurse on duty, Greg had demanded more calcium gluconate to stave off white count complex tachycardia, and had still been arguing with her about whether she could give it to him when he crashed.

But it would certainly have been useful to have someone whom Greg trusted on the hospital staff, to explain the hospital's decisions to him. Warner hadn't even started her new job. She could have come back. "Clean break," she'd said, and refused.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"The patient suggested muscle death and asked for an MRI," the lecturer said. "None of the other doctors thought of it, just as none of you thought of it. After four days of extreme pain, the MRI of his leg showed an infarction. The four-day blockage of blood flow had caused muscle cell death. The dead cells had released cytokines and potassium."

"None of the _other_ doctors?" the front-row kid asked. "Was the patient a doctor?"

"Yes."

"I thought you said he was a slave."

"Slaves can be doctors, if they got a medical licence before they got enslaved. The patient suggested restoring the blood flow instead of just lopping off the leg above the infarction site."

"The amount of waste that would get washed back into the patient's system could kill him." - "The post-operative pain alone could kill him."

"Yes," the lecturer agreed. "At one point in the recovery period, the patient had cardiac failure and was technically dead for over a minute. The patient preferred the hazards of this course to an amputation: the patient's owners considered the costs of a prosthetic limb and agreed to the cheaper course."

"Isn't that immoral? Front row kid waved her hand. "We're supposed to care equally about all our patients. Free or slave."

"When you graduate, if you work for any institution that owns slaves, you will find that your right to care equally about your patients that are the property of the institution, is governed by the institution's right not to go bankrupt caring for them. It's illegal to kill a slave. It's illegal to deny a slave medical treatment so that they die. It's not illegal to balance costs and value and pay only for the treatment that will keep a slave functional. This is a class on diagnostics, not medical ethics."

"But - " front row kid tried to interrupt, but the lecturer kept talking.

"To keep the slave alive and functional, the slave's owner decided the safest course was to debride the dead muscle tissue from the damaged leg. Because of the extent of the muscle removed, utility of the slave's leg was severely compromised. Because of the time delay in making the diagnosis, the slave continues to experience chronic pain, requiring an expensive maintenance program of painkillers to keep the slave functional. Eventually, the cost of the maintenance program will exceed the value of the slave, at which point, the utility of keeping the slave functional will be compromised."

He stopped, and the front-row students started to argue. The back-row student, who had noticed some time ago that the polo-neck the lecturer always wore concealed a collar, remained silent.

"So the prosthetic leg would have been the better choice."

"What the patient wanted should have been the better choice."

"But the slave could have died, and if he was dead, he wasn't worth anything."

"They knew he didn t want the surgery."

"The surgery saved his life!"

"Well, we don't know that. Maybe he would have been fine - "

"It doesn't matter. It's the patient's call."

"Not if he's a slave, and anyway, he's an idiot!"

The lecturer half-laughed. "They usually are." He glanced at the clock. "I overran. You guys are going to be late for lunch. Go."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

The rush of students that came out, talking noisily among themselves, sounded like it had been a successful class. House came last. He was walking slowly, not looking up.

He passed her and stopped. He didn't look at her.

"I don't have a patient right now. Get him to come in tomorrow at ten. Doctor Cameron can take a history. I'll see him when I'm done with clinic hours."

"Thank you," Stacy said.

"Make sure your husband isn't late."

The security guard appeared. House looked over at him. "I think I'm wanted," he said, without expression. "If I'm not available tomorrow, talk to Cuddy."

_*tbc*_

_Not sure when... but the next episode is season finale and then I get to move on to the next season! for a while I never thought I'd get there...  
_


	22. 122 Honeymoon

_This is a crack!AU inspired by DreamsofSpike's "Dark Redux". This is the season finale of Season One. There WILL be a CollarRedux Season Two._

**1.22 The Honeymoon**

"Mark, we need to talk."

"Okay," Mark said. He didn't take his eyes off the page he was looking at. "Hm, do you think saying Abraham Lincoln was born in 1865 should count as half right or half wrong?"

"Depends whether you're marking by mean, median, or modal averages, or actual historical date." Stacy watched as Mark circled the date with a big red mark and added in the margin NICE TRY. "When I said we needed to talk, I meant both of us."

"Either we can talk now, while I'm marking these essays, or we can talk in two hours, when I plan to be asleep. Do you want three-quarters of my attention, or basically, none of it?" Mark looked up briefly as he turned a page.

"I took the day off today and drove to Princeton-Plainsborough."

"I know," Mark said. He went on scanning down the page. "You took the toll card. You never do that except when you're going out-of-state. And you called Princeton-Plainsborough on your cellphone last week, and talked for half an hour, which I knew because I got the bill in the mail yesterday. Are you job hunting?" He finished this essay with a large green tick, and a scribbled SEE ME. "I think this kid might be dyslexic with dates."

"No," Stacy said. "You're sick."

"I'm fine. Doctors checked me out. I'm stressed. I'll be less stressed once I stop spending most of each evening marking essays."

"You're ill. I'm worried. I went to PPTH to ask for a consult."

"For me?" Mark slid the essay on to the finished pile, picked up a new one . "Quiet for a few minutes, this is the kid who can't spell."

"Is he dyslexic?" Stacy squinted.

"I don't think so. He just can't spell. He tells me that they used to fight from wooden shipps with canon and they loose fights when the shipp is sunk. I think I'll give him points for every word over three letters he spells correctly."

"I think you ought to give him a point for 'sue'," Stacy suggested.

"You lawyer, you. He means the girl's name, anyway. He doesn't believe in capital letters."

"Oh." Stacy waited until that essay was on the finished stack. "I want you to book a day off and come through to Princeton-Plainsborough with me and see a doctor there."

"No." Mark went on looking down the essay. "You know as well as I do, I can't take a day off this time of year. Next month."

"I'm worried."

"I'm sorry you're worried. I still can't take a day off."

"Take an evening off."

"You want me to drive two hours after a full day at work to see a doctor to tell me that I'm fine? Like all the other doctors I've seen? No."

"I'm worried," Stacy repeated. "I want you to see this doctor."

"Why this doctor? What's so special about him?"

"Well," Stacy said. "That's part of what we have to talk about."

"Really?"

"You know I worked at PPTH," Stacy said.

"Yes."

"And I had an affair."

"Yes." Mark went on marking. "You had an affair. Well, you had one of the male slaves tagged. I don't know if that constitutes an affair or not, but I don't really want to know. You quit when you met me."

"Sort of," Stacy said.

"What?" Mark put down his pen, and looked up.

"I actually quit two weeks after I met you."

"Oh." Mark shrugged. "Okay. Two weeks. I didn't know. I don't think that's a big deal, really." He bent his head to look at the essay. Then he looked up again. "You kept on diddling this slave for two weeks after we met, five years ago, at the hospital you visited today. Obviously you think this is a big deal since you now need to tell me about it, and you're worrying me. Did the slave turn out to be infected?"

"No," Stacy said. "The slave ... " She pushed her hand through her hair. "The slave is the doctor I want you to see. He's ... Greg House."

"You want me to get checked out by the slave you used to diddle," Mark said.

"Could you not use that word?"

"What word?"

Stacy waved her hand. "Mark. Please. Stop marking your essays, take a break, do a search on Doctor Gregory House on the Internet. Then can we talk?"

Mark stopped. He ran one Internet search. Then another. And another. Then he spent the rest of the evening marking essays and ignoring everything she had to say. Then he went to bed.

"Will you see him?" Stacy asked.

"I'm asleep now," Mark told her, lying down and pulling the blanket over his head.

"Are you mad at me?"

"I can't think why I would be," Mark said. "What else didn't you tell me?"

"How can I possibly answer that question?"

Mark snorted. He was genuinely amused, even if he was still angry. "Yeah right. But come on... You never told me."

"I did."

"You told me, and your friends told me, that you'd had a slave tagged for your use where you worked. You said you'd never done anything like that before, and you never planned to again, and you took the tag off him when you met me."

"I took the tag off him when I decided I was going to marry you," Stacy said. "I love you."

"You didn't tell me he was a world-famous doctor. He's named in medical journals I can't pronounce. You weren't just using him. You were involved with him. And you ditched him in five minutes to marry me."

Stacy sat up. "First of all it wasn't five minutes," she said. Her voice broke. "It was two weeks. And I ditched him because I fell in love with you, you moron."

"You ditched a world-famous doctor for a high school teacher," Mark said flatly. "Or you ditched a slave you didn't own for a man you could."

"I don't own you."

"I gave up my job and moved to another state because you wanted me to. I changed my surname to yours because you wanted me to. I earn so little compared to you that I bet your tax accountant probably begs you to tell me to quit every year around tax filing time."

Stacy blinked. She stared at Mark's shoulder. "I never knew any of these things bothered you."

"They didn't," Mark said. He sat up, too. "What's the difference between this guy and me? Not nearly as much as the difference between both of us and you. When was the last time _you_ worried that you were going to lose your house or get sold? You could ditch him with two weeks notice and you can go back to him because things are difficult with us. You've got him where you want him. Like you got me where you want me."

"I love you," Stacy said again. She was shaking. "I love you and I'm worried about you and I went back to him because he's a genius, and he can figure out what's wrong with you. I'd never have gone back to him otherwise. I never meant to go back to him. Ever."

"He's a genius," Mark repeated. He lay down flat and put his arm over his eyes. "Oh fine." He was silent for a few minutes. "I'm sorry," he said finally, just as Stacy had decided he must have gone to sleep. He turned over and curled up with his back to her. "I'm fine, you know. I'm just stressed. Now I've just got something new to stress about."

"Please," Stacy said. "I want to find out what's wrong with you."

"There's nothing wrong with me," Mark muttered thickly. He reached out to take her hand with his. "Really. There's nothing wrong with me." He was asleep, with his thumb in his mouth, and Stacy lay awake.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson had bought a tag for Greg. Not an expensive one: it was virtually an impulse buy, if you could call it that when Wilson had stood there in the store for half an hour picking out one that wouldn't look like the tag Vogler had clipped to his collar. He had walked in off the street, noticing a sign advertising tags engraved while you wait. Greg's tag. Wilson's name.

Wilson's lawyer had very strongly advised no new attachments, no affairs that Julie could bring up to suggest that the infidelity had been mutual or that his pre-dated hers, until the hearing for their divorce: Julie was unlikely to attend, and the evidence of her infidelity was not in dispute. Wilson was packed up - the things he wanted to claim were in storage, his clothes were boxed or hanging in the hotel room. Once the divorce was final and the house was all Julie's, Wilson could start looking round for another place.

He still didn't altogether like to remember the one night he and Greg had spent together in his hotel room. The blow-job had been great, but once he had time to think about it, blow-jobs were currency for Greg: he had offered Wilson just that before. More than once.

Wilson wanted to see the scar on his leg again. And it disturbed him, that he wanted it so much. He didn't want to hurt Greg - he didn't get off on thinking of slapping Greg around or thrashing him. But he indisputably was getting off on seeing Greg in pain. Seeing the scar on his leg. Even the faint lined scars on his back from the judicial whippings. (If he tagged Greg, he'd have the right to witness him being whipped. Wilson wasn't even sure he should think about that.)

Greg had been hurt. So often. He was in pain so much. Wilson wouldn't need to go out of his way to hurt Greg to see him in pain. He could spend a lot of time caring for Greg. Making him feel better. If he had his own place, he could cook meals for Greg, feed him up - take some place with a hot tub, let Greg soak in hot water for hours to help his leg. And he could fuck him. Slowly and gently. Gently palming the deep scar.

"Doctor Wilson," Cuddy said. "Why haven't you tagged Greg?"

Wilson raised his eyebrows. "Doctor Cuddy. I thought this was a business meeting."

"It is," Cuddy said. "Warner wants Greg to diagnose her husband."

"Well," Wilson said. He wanted to say, "That won't be awkward," but instead he smiled sympathetically. "He's ill?"

"Warner says so. But he's gone to several doctors and they've all cleared him. Warner wants Greg to check him out. What's the reason why you haven't yet tagged him?"

Wilson briefly explained his lawyer's advice. He didn't add anything about his discomfort with what had happened the only time he'd taken Greg back to the hotel room. That was none of Cuddy's business.

"I don't want you to tag Greg while Warner's here," Cuddy said. "When will your divorce be heard?"

"My lawyer hasn't got a date set," Wilson said cautiously, "but I can tell you roughly when he's aiming for." It was a few weeks off: timed to catch a sympathetic judge.

Cuddy nodded. "That's fine." She caught herself. "I'm sorry. Warner and Greg... Greg was much easier to manage when Warner had him tagged. I'd prefer he spends as little time as possible with Warner, but I don't want..." she shrugged, either unable or unwilling to put her thoughts into words.

Wilson could guess them. "You'd rather I waited. That's fine."

Cuddy nodded. "Thank you, Doctor Wilson," she said, almost formally.

"Thanks," Wilson said, meaninglessly. He got up and left the office. It disturbed him that he was relieved to know he could not tag Greg yet.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

"Exploratory surgery," the pretty brunette doctor said it was. Doctor Goldstein was doing it. Cutting Mark open and videoing the operation to see what they found. Stacy sat in the waiting room, dictating notes into her recorder: she had to stop thinking about Mark until the operation was over.

"Leslie vs Lesie seems to be right in point, but I'm sure they're going to try to distinguish it by relying on the minority opinion."

A Starbucks coffee cup appeared in front of her. House was holding it.

"Double milk," House said, "no sugar."

It was a tall latte with an extra shot of espresso, and it was just the right drinking temperature. Stacy only thought after drinking from the cup that when she had been there, one of the running issues House had had with hospital administration had always been that they wouldn't allow him even small amounts of cash to buy coffee or food in the hospital canteen. They must have resolved this somehow.

"I like sugar now," Stacy said.

House sat down next to her. He produced from somewhere a slightly crumbled cookie, wrapped in a napkin, and handed it to her.

"Thanks," Stacy said, surprised.

"You know why people sit in waiting rooms?" House had the tone of being deliberately provocative.

"Oh, this is going to be good," Stacy said, half reassured, half irritated: House was only ever relaxed during a case if he wasn't worried about the health of his patient.

"People think the closer they're sitting to the operating room, the more they care."

"That's why I'm here," Stacy said, almost enjoying this. "I'm not moving until everybody sees me."

"Are you doing anybody besides Mark?"

Stacy looked at him. Suddenly she wasn't enjoying this any more.

"It's a medical question," House said.

"Because if I am his paranoia isn't paranoia, it's a justified response? Therefore, not a legitimate symptom?"

House smirked. "Knew you'd understand."

"On the other hand, if it was really just a medical question you would have sent one of your people. Why just push my buttons when you can push theirs, too? 'Hey, Dr. Mandingo, ask the wife if she's been messing around.' You were asking because, if I am unfaithful, I might do _you_." She was almost sorry, when she saw his eyes widen. But she was right. "The answer's 'no, I don't sleep around'. Make sure you note that in his file."

Doctor Mandingo - no, his name was Foreman - came out of surgery. He spoke quietly. "Mrs. Warner. The surgery went well; he s in recovery, you can see him now."

Stacy let go of an enormous amount of tension. She smiled at Foreman, and got up. She passed another doctor going into the waiting room, on her way out. Mark was okay, and given enough information, House would be able to figure out what was wrong with him.

Mark woke up. He was dazed and confused. She had, after his third panic attack, really shanghai'd him, just to get him to the hospital.

"I don't even remember how I got here."

"You passed out. I got you into the car."

She had to repeat this several times, but eventually Mark fell silent and lay still, one hand playing with the hospital blanket.

"Did your slave see me?"

"He's not my slave," Stacy said.

"Your boy," Mark said, with bitterness. "The boy genius. Did he see me?"

"Exploratory surgery was done by Doctor Goldstein. MRAs wre done by Doctor Foreman. He hasn't seen you directly yet."

"Good," Mark said. He moved uncomfortably in the bed. "The first time I see him, I want to be awake."

Stacy was silent, watching him. "Mark, I have to ask you to promise me something."

Mark shrugged and half-laughed, spreading his arms a little, taking in the hospital room. "Sure," he said. "Anything."

"You're free. He's a slave. You can get him into any amount of trouble without trying very hard." In retrospect, that security guard's casual question "Did he say anything inappropriate?" was giving Stacy the chills. It would have been too easy to say yes. "If you ever say or do anything to have him punished... we're through."

Mark was silent, watching her. "You mean that."

"Yes," Stacy said. The tall guard and his innocuous question. The scared way House had looked at her. Even if they were letting him have enough cash to buy a coffee with, they were also treating him more stringently in other ways, she was sure of it.

"God, Stacy," Mark said. "What do you think I am? I'm not going to go round trying to get a slave whipped just because I _can_."

Tears were standing in Stacy's eyes. She put her hand out and Mark took it.

"I know," Stacy said, through tears. "But he can be annoying. He can be the most annoying guy you ever met. I think they're doing things to him. I don't want it to be you. Not now, not ever."

"Okay," Mark said. He patted her hand. "Okay. I wouldn't. I won't."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson had brought Greg a latte and a hazelnut cookie from Starbucks, and waited his usual fifteen minutes to try to get him to talk. It was important not to let Greg forget that Wilson was waiting for him. That ultimately, Wilson was going to be good for Greg.

Greg didn't open the latte or touch the cookie: Wilson got up and left him after the fifteen. Stacy Warner had brought her husband in the previous night. Cuddy had suggested Warner should be let to re-tag Greg. Wilson trusted it wouldn't come to that. Warner had ditched Greg before.

Greg seemed impenetrable. Again.

Wilson wondered what he would do right now if he did have Greg tagged. Take him back home - get him drunk? put him in a him a hot bath and scrub his back? withhold painkillers?

All he could do, at the hospital, to an untagged slave, was insist on meeting with him on a regular basis. Bring him food or coffee. Make him sit with Wilson, and listen to Wilson talk about his day, if Greg wouldn't talk himself.

And keep track of him. This was usually easy: Greg moved between clinic and Diagnostics, with his only other permitted stops the pharmacy, the staff bathroom where he kept himself clean, and - when he made the time - the slave canteen at mealtimes and the groomer. Greg didn't often make the time.

If Greg was tagged his, Wilson could take him to meals in the staff canteen. More flexibility in meal times, wider range of food.

Wilson sat with Greg for fifteen minutes, watching Greg ignore his latte and cookie, and then went back to his own office. He was meeting with a patient when he saw Greg pass his door, holding the coffee cup.

_That_ was odd.

Wilson managed to put it out of his mind, but when the patient had left and Wilson had a few minutes break in his schedule, he tracked Greg: the Diagnostics slave, security reported, was in the waiting room outside the OR where the Diagnostics patient was being operated on.

Wilson arrived just as Stacy Warner left. She went past Wilson briskly, without looking at him, and turned towards the recovery room.

Doctor Foreman was saying "...distended bladder," when Wilson came in.

Greg glanced at Wilson, but said to Foreman "Neurogenic bladder isn't causing the pain."

"Also doesn't cause personality changes," Foreman said. "On the other hand, it would completely account for Cameron's diagnosis - the patient's completely healthy."

"Give me the video for the surgery," Greg said. He looked at Wilson. "Can I have the hi-res screen from the oncology lounge?"

wilson laughed: it was actually funny. Foreman looked disgusted. Greg half-grinned, looking genuinely amused.

"You always want me to sit on that couch and watch old movies and cry," Greg said. "Brand new movie. Loads of blood and guts. Ending's kind of dark. Bring popcorn."

"Are you serious?"

"Well, it's either oncology or ob/gyn," Greg said. He was still grinning,

The video of Mark Warner's surgery was boring. Not so much the first time through, but when nothing showed up, Greg began it again from the start. And again. And again. He didn't just sit watching it with rapt attention - Wilson thought he would have enjoyed that - he got up and walked round the room, staring at the screen from different angles as it replayed. He was too fascinated to look much in pain. Wilson had brought some paperwork - mostly as an excuse for why they were using the oncology lounge, partly because he wanted Greg to relax and not think about Wilson watching him - but somewhere around the second playthrough, the paperwork actually became more interesting than watching Greg or the video. Somewhere after midnight, Wilson idly thought about taking Greg back to his room, but he thought he might have to call security to get him to move. He sat down on the couch and propped his feet up. Greg was playing with his cane, turning it in his hands, his eyes fixed on the screen. Wilson dozed off.

He woke up when Greg sat down beside him. It was after three in the morning. Greg looked bleary-eyed and not especially happy. "I don't need to look at it any more."

"Given up?"

"No." Greg had switched off the TV. He looked at Wilson uneasily. "You want a blow-job?"

Wilson snorted. "No." He pushed himself to his feet. He held out a hand to Greg, and pulled him up, with Greg's cooperation. "I'm tired. I want to go to sleep. What did you see?" He took the DVD out of the player, and handed it to Greg.

"Some sort of neurological problem. Abdominal epilepsy. Tremors in the muscle fiber."

"Could be peristalsis," Wilson said.

Greg snorted. He caught himself and glanced at Wilson again, warily. Wilson smiled at him and closed his hand around Greg's wrist, leading them to Diagnostics. He was too tired to do anything more tonight.

"I'm going to get you a morning off clinic duty," Wilson said. "You've been doing double shifts for months now. You should have worked off your backlog of hours."

Greg gave him a cynical look. But he fell onto his narrow bunk and closed his eyes. Wilson tucked the blanket around his shoulders, and brushed his fingers across the prickly stubble. He couldn't decide if Greg would look better shaved or left scruffy like this. He felt Greg tremble under his hand, and decided to leave him alone to go to sleep. He would send an e-mail to the shift manager for the clinic and have her take Greg off duty.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Mark was angry. The next morning Stacy had to leave the hospital for several hours to meet with a client who couldn't wait, but the Diagnostics team seemed to have a range of tests - which meant House had at least a working hypothesis. The tests included, Stacy found, a genetic one for the markers for Alzheimers. (Negative. Stacy wasn't surprised.) During the PET scan, when Stacy was out of the hospital, on the grounds of testing his memory and limbic system, House had asked Mark a whole lot of intrusive questions about their marriage.

"I told you I wouldn't get him punished," Mark said. He was still angry, hours later. "I promised. I won't. But he is _not_ to do this - is he doing it because he knows you won't _let_ him be punished?"

"I'm sorry," Stacy said.

"He was completely - " Mark shook his head. "I haven't even seen him yet, but he was - " He was staring at Stacy. "Even if he was free, those kind of questions - he asked about our wedding night, for God's sake - " He was shaking. A nurse appeared.

"Mr Warner, you need to calm down."

"Do you know my wife was diddling a fucking slave in this hospital?" Mark's voice broke. "Do you? Does everyone here know?" He almost screamed it. The nurse slid a needle into the IV. Mark flailed again, tilted his head, and collapsed back against the bed.

The blond doctor with the Australian accent appeared. Chase. "Mrs Warner," he said, briefly, looking at the readings. "Was that an attack?"

Stacy realized she was gripping the rail at the end of the bed. "He - he reacted - "

"Was it a reaction to something that happened," Doctor Australian said.

"No," Stacy said. "Yes. Sort of."

Doctor Australian nodded, sympathetically, as if this made entire sense to him. "An overreaction?"

"House was asking inappropriate questions during the PET scan."

"Yes. Foreman said." The blond doctor nodded. Chase. His name was Chase. "That was hours ago," Chase said. "If he was going to have an attack because of that, he would have had one then."

"He doesn't have Alzheimers," Stacy said. "He forgets people's names sometimes, but everyone does that. I do that."

"He doesn't have any of the genetic markers for Alzheimers," Chase said.

"Does House think it could be Alzheimers?" Stacy noticed the correction.

Chase shrugged. "Who knows what House thinks?"

Stacy walked away. Mark would be out of it for a while. She could guess where House was. On the roof. It was one of the two places in the outside air he was allowed to go without escort: there were fences to stop someone taking a jump.

It had got dark out. Stacy hadn't noticed till she opened the door on to the roof. In the shadows, House was leaning on the wall round the roof. He had turned when he heard the door opening.

"Here we go," he said, sounding resigned.

Stacy had a head of steam building up inside her. "He's sick, paranoid, and you keep hammering him about me?" If House was still that obsessed with her - Or had he known she'd asked Mark not to have him punished?

"The questions were designed to define the operational parameters of his limbic system - "

"Elevate the words all you want, you were just screwing with him." It was fair, in a horrible sort of way, for House to try to take revenge on her, but Mark hadn't done anything to him. "Low even by your standards."

"Medical screwing. It's what I do," House said, very quietly.

"And then you run away like a 12-year-old. Go hide on the roof like you always do."

"I haven't been up here in five years."

Stacy stared, and realized House was staring at her. The roof was dark and quiet. They were alone together for the first time in five years. She had taken off the tag in his Diagnostics cubby-hole, and walked away. Five years. She'd chosen Mark because she could have a future with him: with House, all they ever had was a succession of shared today's.

"I don't know what's wrong with him," House said, awkwardly. "It's not Alzheimers, it's not encephalitis, it's not environmental, it's not immunological. Every test is negative, every time. He's perfectly healthy, but his brain is dying."

There seemed to be a rock in Stacy's throat. She spoke past it. "It never occurred to me that you couldn't figure out what's wrong." She was crying. Her eyes and throat hurt. House walked over to her. He put his arms around her, and she leaned her face against his chest and put her hand up to fist in his shirt.

"I haven't given up," House said gently, urgently.

"So what do we do?" Stacy asked into his shirt.

"We wait."

Stacy could feel him shrug. She looked up. "For what?"

"Something to change." He wasn't holding her any more: she missed his arms around him, and let go of his shirt, in the same moment. They hadn't stood like this in five years.

"It's one of the great tragedies of life," House said, neutrally, and Stacy stepped back from him. "Something always changes."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Wilson was finishing off some work at his desk. He could have gone home, but there just wasn't the same attraction when "home" was an empty hotel room. His decisions for tonight were whether to call for take-out from the hospital or from the hotel.

There was a knock at the balcony door. Wilson looked up sharply, startled. Greg stood in the darkness outside, his face a white blur. Wilson got up, and went to the door. Before he got there, Greg had opened it.

"Hello," Wilson said, surprised, pleased. "Come in." He glanced at his watch. Greg was due at the clinic in half an hour.

Greg came in. He looked tired. His hair was windblown, slightly wet with rain. He stood with his hands gripping on his cane.

"You got me off clinic duty this morning," Greg said.

"Yes," Wilson said. He smiled. "Only you could make that sound like an accusation."

"Why'd you do that? Because you want to have sex with me?"

Wilson snorted. "Because you were tired. You'd have had to do your shift on four hours sleep."

"Concern for the patients I was treating," Greg said. His face was blank. "You thought I'd make a mistake."

"Because you were tired," Wilson repeated. "What's the problem - I can't do something nice for you?"

Greg snorted/laughed, both at once. He shrugged. "I thought Mark had Guillain-Barre syndrome. It fit the symptoms. He's paralyzed. The treatment isn t all that dangerous, plasmapheresis and IVIG, so I started him on it, I thought he'd get better."

"From your tense," Wilson said, "I'm guessing he didn't."

"I got the report on his blood work just now," Greg said. "He's not responding to treatment."

"I'm sorry." He was: when Mark got better, Stacy would leave.

Greg leaned both hands on his cane. His knuckles were white. "I was happy." He stared down at his hands. "He's my patient. I'm sure he's a good guy, he's probably a great guy. Probably a much better guy than I am. He's my _patient_. And some part of me wants him to die."

He stood there, silent, head down. Wilson stood paralyzed. He rubbed the back of his neck.

"Are you asking to be taken off the case?"

"If I can't figure it out nobody can," Greg said, without emphasis: he was just stating a plain fact. "I don't even know why I - " He looked up, and met Wilson's eyes. "I'm not hospital equipment," he said. "I'm a doctor. I advocate for my patients. Even when I can't do anything else. I can always do that. He's my patient, and I want him to die." His eyes were blue and very wide.

Wilson stared, brain racing. If Mark died. If he didn't get better. If Stacy left Mark, or was widowed. Would she re-tag Greg? He opened his mouth and heard himself stating the obvious. "She's married."

Greg snorted. "So were you, when you started nosing around me."

"You - always - do your best." Wilson gripped the back of his neck, shuffling his feet. It was ridiculous, to be saying this to a slave. But there was no one else to hear, and Greg's blue eyes were very large and desperate in his thin face. "You always do your best for your patients. Even the ones who treat you like crap. You'll figure out what's wrong with him. I have every confidence in you."

Greg snorted, again, and his eyes dropped to his hands gripping the cane. His knuckles were less white. "Sure, you say that now, but wait till you find another chronic pain patient to give you blow-jobs."

"You think of blow-jobs as currency," Wilson said.

Greg smirked, briefly, face downturned. He looked up again, his face blank. "I have to go. Shift starts in fifteen minutes."

"I could get you off the evening shift."

"I doubt it," Greg said, and limped round Wilson - his usual wary avoidance slightly tempered, Wilson thought - on his way out of the door.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Stacy was sitting with Mark. She was holding his hand: he couldn't feel it, but it made her feel better. His hand still felt normal: warm, alive. But he didn't move his hand: turn to grip hers, stroke her palm with his fingers.

Mark looked up abruptly. Stacy followed his gaze. House was standing in the doorway.

House said to Mark, "Hey. Is it okay if I talk to Stacy for a minute?"

Mark glanced at her, and nodded. Stacy got up. "I'll be just outside, honey."

House was awkward to walk with now. He limped a few steps down the corridor. "You two are good together."

Stacy was impatient; this was diagnostically irrelevant. "You know nothing about Mark."

House paused and glanced at her. "He took you to Paris, that's good enough for me."

"We never went to Paris," Stacy corrected him.

"Your honeymoon. It's been your dream city, you wanted to go since you were sixteen, he actually took you."

"No, I had to work," Stacy corrected him, not patiently. "We spent the night in New York, then went back to Short Hills. What is it?"

House stopped, planting his cane. His eyes were wide and interested. "When did Mark switch from mountain biking to yoga?"

"About a month ago," Stacy said. She stopped, and turned to face him. "The same time he started getting sick, what does that mean?"

Slowly, House smiled, showing most of his teeth. "We have two more symptoms."

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Foreman had been getting increasingly impatient with Doctor House. Cameron had outed with the news that their patient's wife was the lawyer who'd had Greg tagged for five years. If Greg were free, that would probably make it an unacceptably close relationship for treatment; because Greg was a slave, that didn't apply. But Greg's abilities were almost certainly compromised. Doctor House was not functioning as Foreman knew he could. And no one - Cuddy's job, or Wilson's - was stepping in to take this patient away from House.

"Patient was asked a series of questions to determine the functionality of his brain," House said.

"You grilled him about Stacy," Foreman snapped.

"Whatever," House said. He looked much more relaxed than before. "Yeah, point is he told us everything we needed to know to diagnose him, that is if we use your fancy PET scan as a lie detector. See, it's a very creative process, lying. Now, telling the truth is a much simpler process. See here. Question nine, this is where Mark gives a long, rambling answer about taking Stacy to Paris. What does the PET scan say?" He gestured at the screen.

Reading it was like plain print. Obviously House had an answer of his own in mind, but he was wasting everybody's time by running them through these questions. "Minimal involvement. Just the frontal and temporal lobes."

"He said he went to Paris and the PET confirms it, so what?" Chase asked.

"They didn't go," House said. He sounded very cheerful about it. "They didn't go to Paris, and yet Mark s brain apparently thinks that he really did spend 40 francs on a tour of the Bastille." He limped over to the white board and began to erase it. "So we have an intermittent syndrome that presents with abdominal pain, polyneuropathy, paranoia and delusions. Now, here's the thing about Acute Intermittent Porphyria. It'll jump you in a dark alley, beat the crap out of you, leave you bleeding. But it wears gloves, so no fingerprints. Doesn't show up in blood tests, urine tests, nothing. Unless you catch it red handed in the middle of an attack."

"But there are other symptoms of AIP," Chase said. Foreman wondered for the first time if Chase's apparent inability to learn that House always had something else in mind when he started asking questions and making statements like this, was a real inability to learn - or a much better-acted means of pleasing House.

"Such as?" House asked. He sounded pretty pleasant about it.

"Light sensitivity?"

"Yeah, well, one of the true tragedies of this condition is it makes you want to stick your cool, new mountain bike in the garage and take up an indoor sport like, say, yoga. Start the treatment: hematin and glucose."

Cameron hadn't said anything till now, and she sounded upset. "If you give him hematin and you're wrong, he dies today."

It was clear where House was going. He was convinced of his diagnosis, and he didn't want to test for it. But there was no way to prove the diagnosis except by waiting for an attack and taking a urine sample. "There's only one way to confirm AIP: urine sample made during the attack."

"And there's no way to predict when he'll have another attack," Chase said, stating the obvious. House looked half-way pleased. Foreman glanced at Cameron's worried look and Chase's bland one, and thought he could predict what House was going to say. But he waited for House to say it.

"Sure there is," said House, and he really was smiling.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Chase didn't know if the diagnosis was right or wrong. It fit the symptoms. House thought it was right, and was willing to risk the patient dying if he was wrong, which was invariably a sign he was very sure indeed. Chase's estimation was that House was likely to be right. But years ago, back when House had just been bought by PPTH, there was a patient whose file still surfaced sometimes: someone who had died before House diagnosed her, and House had never worked out what was wrong with her.

They were all standing around in Mark Warner's room. House had gone to the pharmacy window and written a scrip for a large dose of mixed chemicals. The pharmacist had looked House over, suspiciously, and told him he'd have to wait a couple of hours.

"Acute Intermittent Porphyria has very specific triggers. Barbiturates, alcohol, high levels of protein set off an attack," Greg told Stacy.

"Which trigger do you think set off Mark's?" Stacy Warner asked.

"Not the faintest idea," House said. "That's why I m going to give him the combo plate."

"So if he has this, and you trigger the attack, the attack makes him worse. Right?" Stacy was looking at him with clear wariness.

"Yeah. But then we'll know what it is and we can treat it."

Mark didn't move. He was propped up on his bed, still from the neck down. "What if I don t have this thing," he said, "and you give me that shot? What happens?"

House turned and looked at him. All his attention went on Mark, like a flare. "No idea. If we don't know what's messing up your brain we don't know how you'll react."

"Okay," Stacy said. House didn't look at her. "I need a minute with my husband."

House swung away, pivoting on his cane. He walked out without looking at her, or Mark.

Mark refused the triggers. Stacy argued with him. Argued with House. House said nothing. He had looked very cheerful and sure of himself when he figured out the diagnosis, but he wasn't saying anything now. Stacy tried to get Foreman and Cameron and Chase to argue with Mark, and got them back along to Mark's room. House stayed behind in the Diagnostics box.

"Still no change," Foreman said, finishing a set of neurological tests.

"He's not getting worse?" Stacy demanded.

"No, no change at all," Foreman said.

"And that s consistent with AIP, right? Until he has another attack his condition's stable?" Stacy had tagged Greg, for five years: when Chase first came to the hospital, she was still talked about sometimes, as the one who could run Greg without discipline. With just admiration, apparently.

"Yes," Cameron said. She sounded sulky. She had that crush on House, but he'd always ignored her.

"Mark," Stacy said. "You've got to - "

"I don't want to take that test. Not until they're sure."

"You don t know House," Stacy said.

"Not like you do," Mark snapped.

"Boy, are my ears burning," House said from the doorway. He was carrying, with proper care, a large hypodermic syringe, filled with a yellowish fluid.

"What's that," Mark yelped.

"Cocktail hour," House said. "Just because you can't hoist a few doesn't mean you should be left out." He walked over to the bed.

"Get away from me," Mark said. He couldn't move. He sounded scared.

"Mark," Stacy said. "This is what he thinks is wrong with you."

"You trust his judgment more than mine?"

Chase looked away, looked back again. They were staring at each other, and House was watching both of them. It was like a train wreck waiting to happen.

"His medical judgment," Stacy said.

"And you'd bet my life on that."

Stacy didn't even hesitate. "I would."

"I don t," Mark said flatly.

"Smart," House said, just as flatly. "Too bad you're paralyzed." He reached for the IV line.

If House was right. If he wasn't. If this cocktail killed Mark Warner. The pharmacist knew House had ordered it. THere were hospital staff enough who'd heard Stacy arguing, Mark's reaction. They knew Mark hadn't consented.

Even if House was right: he was going to be whipped for this. Thirty. Sixty. More. And if he was wrong - Chase swallowed.

Foreman moved. He blocked House from the IV line, while Chase was still telling himself he should.

House's mouth opened. He showed his teeth. Not a smile. "Bing! Paging Dr. Foreman! Leave the room. It's not your problem."

"You need the consent from him," Foreman said.

"Doc, he ain't right in the head!" House sounded giddy, as if he was high on something. Not oxycontin. Too late in the afternoon. He backed off from Foreman, still holding the syringe.

"Then you need a court order," Cameron said, sensibly and professionally.

"Okay, then get one," House said. He traded glances with Stacy. "We'll wait here. I won't do nothin'."

Cameron stepped in beside Foreman. After a moment, realizing he could move, Chase positioned himself to block House from reaching Mark.

"Oh. Love the Musketeer thing. I got goosebumps," House said.

"Give me the syringe." Cameron said. She held out her hand. House didn't respond. Chase didn't suppose Cameron would seriously expect it.

Stacy Warner had seemed completely self-controlled. She was suddenly near tears. "Please, if you're right this may be his only shot."

"So what's your plan?" House said sarcastically. "You take the big, dark one, I've got the little girl and the Aussie will run like a scared wombat if things turn rough."

Chase was watching House. He had been standing with his cane, not leaning on it but ready to use it as a pivot: he looked about ready to jump them, and Chase supposed he might: he'd seen House do crazier things when he was trying to do his best for his patient, but never anything so likely to about get him killed, if he was wrong.

Then House slumped. He turned his head away, and looked at Stacy. His voice was so full of despair Chase nearly gave in. "I can't do it," House said quite clearly, and turned away.

Chase relaxed.

House spun - afterwards, Chase thought, he'd seen House use his cane like a third leg, moving far quicker than Chase had known he could - and lunged. The needle went into Mark's leg, and in the same move, House depressed the plunger. The syringe was empty.

"You son of a bitch!" Mark bellowed.

"See what I did there?" House said, apparently to Stacy. Chase went to check Mark's vital signs. They weren't changing.

"When does it happen?" Stacy asked.

"If he had AIP," Chase said, "it should have already happened." He glanced at House. At the back of his mind he could hear the high thin whine that he'd heard Greg make when he was dragged away, knowing what he was going to.

"Everyone's different," House said.

"This is not good," Foreman said flatly. He was also checking Mark's vitals. He was talking with deliberate unexcited flat calm. "He could have embolism, tachycardia, stroke - "

Mark couldn't move voluntarily. But his body was spasming as his muscles jerked without his control, and Chase saw his vitals jump and fall - He was going to stroke - Chase yelled at Cameron, "Two milligrams of Ativan!"

"What's happening?" Stacy said, sounding terrified. "Is that an attack?"

House hit the pre-loaded Ativan away with his cane: he was hovering over Mark, staring down at him with a pecular expression on his face. "No, you'll pollute the sample! Chase, get urine from the catheter."

"It's not an attack," Foreman snapped, "he's stroking!"

"He needs Ativan!" Chase said, trying to turn House's cane and grab the syringe Cameron was still holding.

"This is not a stroke," House contradicted. "Delta wave bursts just at the base of the spasm."

The catheter fell, splashing stale urine. Chase saw it/smelt it go. "Catheter s out, there's no way to collect the sample," he said.

"Heart rate's in the 40s, bradycardia, we're losing him!" Foreman's calm had cracked.

"Hold him down!" House said, just as Stacy said "Give him something!"

House shook his head. "No pain killers!" He grabbed for an empty syringe.

"You were wrong!" Foreman was actually shouting. Chase had time to think he had never seen him so emotional, when House stuck the needle directly into Mark's groin, and Mark screamed. The syringe was filling with yellow liquid.

"Straight from the bladder, that's as fresh as it gets," House said. He glanced, impatiently, at Cameron. "Will you give him the Ativan already? He doesn t need to be awake for this."

Carrying the urine sample, he walked out, leaving the three of them staring at each other, and Stacy weeping, and Mark, unconscious at last, his vitals calming.

House was dead. As soon as Mark woke up - if he did - and if he didn't wake -

Greg had assaulted a patient. No matter what the patient's wife said, no matter what the three of them said - and Chase knew, anyway, he wouldn't risk his livelihood by lying to Cuddy when Cuddy would know it was a lie - Greg was going to be whipped, as hard as he'd ever _been_ whipped. And if it wasn't porphyria, and Mark died of what House had done -

A court order would have an out-of-control slave put down.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Cameron guessed where House had gone: he was in the Diagnostics lab. Foreman had stayed with Mark and Stacy Warner. Chase had walked out, but he hadn't followed House to the lab.

If it was porphyria, Mark's urine would turn black in the light. House lifted the test tube, swirling the urine.

"It's still yellow," Cameron said. If it wasn't porphyria - Cameron was almost angry with him. She was angry with him. House had no right to risk that.

"Move," House said abruptly.

"What?" Cameron was startled. House had grabbed a lamp.

"You think another light's going to make the difference?" Chase asked from the doorway. He sounded tired. His face looked strained.

"Organic chem," House said. "More lights, more oxidation. Ring any bells?" He was holding the sample to the light, and as he spoke, the urine turned black.

"Start the patient on 150 milligrams glucose, 75 milligrams hematin," House said.

Foreman was standing at Chase's shoulder; they turned to go, and Cameron followed them, casting one glance over her shoulder: House was leaning on the lab bench, his cane forgotten on the floor. He looked dead tired, and yet somehow impossibly relieved.

In a way, it was like the end of any case. Porphyria responded rapidly to treatment. Mark Warner's paralysis of his upper body was passing off as rapidly as it had come on. Stacy Warner was sitting with him. They were holding hands, Cameron saw through the blinds of the ward, and looking at each other as if there was nothing else in the world.

Cameron glanced sideways, and saw House, standing a little way from the doorway, far enough to be invisible from inside the ward, looking in. There was an expression on his face that Cameron understood, with a jolting shock, she would never see on his face when he looked at her.

"Doctor House," she said, warning him she could see him. "How's he doing?"

House glanced inside the ward again, and turned away. He was leaning on his cane. He spoke quietly. "Never better."

"I thought you were too screwed up to love anyone," Cameron said. "I was wrong. You just couldn't love me."

House looked at her. His face was weary, and the brief expression Cameron had seen on it had passed off.

"It's okay," Cameron said. "I'm happy for you." She walked off.

_*House*MD*House*MD*House*MD*House*_

Now that the diagnosis had been made, once Mark's condition wasn't acute, he was moved to an ordinary ward, off the Diagnostics floor: Stacy got him a private room. It was clear, though no one was giving dates, that Mark wasn't leaving hospital for some time.

There were staff in and out, but when Stacy heard high-heeled shoes, not in visiting hours, she guessed and looked up at the same moment; Lisa Cuddy. They'd become, sort of, half way friends, during the years Stacy had House tagged, even if they hadn't spoken much since.

"Mr Warner," Cuddy said. "I gathered there was a query about your consent to procedures performed earlier.

Mark looked at her. He said, in the dry voice he used to parents he didn't like, "I was out of my head. I consented to tests performed to save my life. I consent now to all the tests the Diagnostics team performed." He paused. "Is that enough? Whatever paperwork there is, can I do it tomorrow?"

"Certainly," Cuddy said. "You have no complaint to make?"

"None at all," Mark said, still in that dry voice.

"I want to run something by you," Cuddy said.

"Me?" Mark said.

"Both of you," Cuddy said. "Mr Warner, you're going to need close monitoring at the hospital for some time. Mrs Warner - "

"Stacy," Stacy said. "Lisa."

"I'd like to offer you a job, Stacy," Lisa Cuddy said, nodding briefly, moving smoothly to given names. "We can definitely use you back at PPTH. General Counsel. I realise it won't pay as much as private practice, but - "

"We'll need to discuss it," Mark said.

"Yes," Stacy said. "We'll tell you tomorrow, Lisa. Thank you."

After the door had closed behind Cuddy, Mark said "He's _still_ a maniac."

"Yes," Stacy said.

"Do you want to take this job?"

"It would mean we wouldn't have to live on our savings while you're here." Stacy had already done the math. "If you're in hospital as the spouse of an employee, we get the employee discount. I can finish my cases and take unpaid compassionate leave while you're in hospital. It makes sense. But - "

Mark closed his eyes. "You want to to ask that maniac ex-boytoy of yours if it's okay with him."

"He is _ex_," Stacy reminded him.

"Oh I know," Mark said. He didn't open his eyes. "I'm tired."

"I won't be long," Stacy said.

"I'll be asleep," Mark said.

"I'll be here when you wake up."

They let go of each other's hands, and Stacy stood up and walked out of the room. Diagnostics was in the other wing, up three floors. PPTH was a small hospital, but big enough that if she did take this job, she needn't see much of House.

The Diagnostics conference room was glass-walled. The lights were off. It looked deserted, and then Stacy realised there was a shadow against the windows: it didn't move, but it was tall and human-shaped.

Stacy went in and walked over to the window, not switching the light on. House lifted the blinds and peered out, apparently pretending not to see or hear her: it was getting dark outside, and raining. The drops splattered against the glass.

"You fixed him," Stacy said, for openers.

"De nada," House said.

"Thank you," Stacy said. "You were right."

House twitched. It was an odd flinching jerk, not a reaction she'd seen from House before. "He's going to be fine."

"No, about me." Stacy spoke gently. "I'm not over you. You were, you were the one, you always will be. But I can't be with you."

House nodded. His collar showed dark against the pale skin of his neck. Hard smooth metal, with D-rings. Stacy had learned to be with him and never touch it: House never liked to be touched where collar met skin. He nodded again. "Okay."

"You are brilliant, funny, surprising, sexy..." Stacy swallowed. House was staring at her, eyes very blue in his thin face. "But I can't be with you. Lisa Cuddy offered me a job here. While Mark's recovering. It makes sense for us - for Mark and me - if I take it. General Counsel. But I don't want to take it, if you don't want me to."

"Makes sense," House said. Stacy could guess he'd done the math as fast as she had. "Cuddy wants you to tag me again."

"I can't do that."

"Why not? Hubby object?"

"He thinks you're a maniac. He's right of course." Stacy half-laughed, even through tears. "What's so great about you both, you always think you're right. What's so frustrating about you both is you _are_ right so much of the time. Cuddy never mentioned tagging you. I won't do it. I wanted a clean break."

"It makes sense," House said. "You should take the job."

"I'm not going to tag you. I'm not going to _see_ you. We're through."

"I know," House said. He sounded very quiet.

"With you I was lonely, and with Mark there's room for me."

"Okay," House said. He was still rigid by the window. "Fine. Good."

The rain splattered hard against the window. Stacy turned away and left him in the dark alone.

**_the end_**

_Season One comes to a close. Look for CollarRedux2 and Season Two! Yes, I'm planning to keep this going..._


End file.
